Dear Lindsey,

I found a note on my desk from my daughter. It read, “Dear Mom, I borrowed some paper but will give some art.”  As the paper was indeed returned in its promised form, I was pleased and impressed with the variety: paintings, and pen-drawings, notes and 3-D creations came pouring back onto my desk – all from a ream of paper and its cousins: Post-it notes and canvas.  Her brothers helped.

The colors were beautiful on the flowers that echoed God’s creation. The drawings have improved through the years of her youth, as the once stick figure now has eyes, expressions and even backgrounds of mirrors or wheat fields. Sometimes the paper comes back as a pleading note, an invitation to a “Be Happy Party!” or as a glitter-filled, “I’m sorry. I was rong. Will you fergiv me?”

The notes to me, personally, hold a special place in my heart: “MomWOW!” or “I [heart] Mom” or I especially love the picture of me inside of the world.

"You're the Best Mom 'in the world'"

The love-letters to me are equaled only by those which

tell of love to her brothers and dad, “The Best thing about you is…” or “I love J.R.” or “Nate, you are always the laugh-maker that keeps me happy.”

As I read her note of borrowing paper and returning art, I saw such a parallel that God has given us pages to fill with our art.

As the LIFE book, by Woodward and my husband says, “Life is God’s gift to us. What we do with it is our gift to God.”

We have 365 pages each year to return to Him with our “art.”  Unfortunately, I know there are days, no, actually I know there are years when I have given back nothing but scribbles –wandering back and forth aimlessly as my pen kept drawing. Other days have gone by as unfulfilled lists: things “to do” that didn’t receive my effort. I am trying to push out of memory the pages of life where my day caused pain to others. (…like the one note I found from my child to a sibling that said, “You are stoopid” that got thrown away by me, instead of photographed.) Some of the days God gave me were wasted, because I was too self-absorbed, hiding my art, thinking it was unworthy to share with others.

On occasion, to Him I returned pages of “sorry” and “please” just like my daughter’s notes to me.

We can see our own created “art” change from stick figures to colors, to backgrounds and hopefully even a little depth through the years, as we become new creatures.  I pray that we create pages of our life with our best effort, not for a blue ribbon on earth, or trophy on TV, but for His utmost glory.

God doesn’t judge us by our ability to draw, any more than I worry about the spelling on the love notes from my kids. It’s the love that matters.  All we ever have to be is what He made us.  So let’s “make art,” and to do it with excellence, every day. I think He would love a picture of me loving my husband in private and in public. He might enjoy a visual of me listening to or otherwise helping a stranger. His joy must abound in our thank-you notes.  He would love to see that I love HIM and think He is worthy of awe, in the depths of my heart.

When Jesus was asked what the two most important commandments were, He replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. And the second is like it: love your neighbor as yourself.”  So it seems that the pages of our lives which God, Himself, would enjoy the most are the same notes that were my favorites from my daughter’s drawings: “I love my brother.” and “I love You.”

May this day of your life be a masterpiece for His name’s sake.

-Terri

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