So many times I wonder how God can love someone who
continuously messes up.
I see all the
things that I do or create and it never seems to come out perfect enough.
My best well made plans for how I’m going to
help someone or do something new in ministry or my greatest lesson plan ever
never turn out the way I would like.
I
know I have had so many missed opportunities.
I look back at the things I have accomplished and I see their
imperfections and hang my head and get frustrated.
And then last Sunday I was in Sunday school class with
Nathan. Because I was holding Benjamin
at the time, Nathan had to do his craft on his own. He began coloring the people on the paper. Some of them were colored with purple skin,
many of the colors of their clothes did not coordinate, and while he did his
best the colors didn’t always stay inside the lines. He then began cutting them out, a difficult
task for a three year old. He worked
diligently cutting around each person.
The lines were not cut straight and several people lost their arms
during his work. He continued working
happily and glued the people to the paper in the wrong order. Then he held up the paper and said, “Look
mommy, I’m done! I did it!.” And my eyes
teared up . . . because it was the most
beautiful thing I had ever seen.
My mother’s heart had swelled with pride and I watch Nathan
work. I loved seeing the advances he has
made and I loved seeing his joy when he realized that he had completed it. It didn’t matter to me that it was imperfect,
not one bit. At that moment, God spoke
to my heart and said, “See Laura, that’s what I see when I look at what you
do.”
As we go though our lives, we will work hard at many
things. God will be there to guide us
but many times our coloring will be out of place, things will be out of order,
and someone might even lose some arms in our enthusiasm. But as a proud parent, our Father is going to
be looking down at our work and he is going to see something beautiful. It might be something only a Father could
love, but his is the only opinion that really matters anyhow, right?
