Beauty from Chaos

This isn’t my story.  Would that it were: my art teachers were never compassionate enough to give this kind of encouragement.  It is today’s devotional from The Upper Room and it touched a very old scar, deeply buried.  Yet even now it’s fading as I realize that their judgements never mattered.  I am loved and appreciated and guided by the Creator.  My work, not to mention my life, is made beautiful by His hand.

Our art teacher announced, “You have 30 minutes to draw anything that comes into your mind.” I stared at the plain white sheet of paper, wondering, What am I going to draw? The art teacher insisted, “Put the pencil on the paper and scribble.” I started scribbling.

At the end of the time, the teacher asked us, one by one, to tell what we had drawn. My peers gleefully mentioned birds, houses, animals, trees. When the teacher called on me, I stood up confused. After a silence, he walked to me. He showed my scribbles to the class and said that I had made a beautiful art work.

The class laughed as I bowed down my head, thinking that he was making fun of me. “You have a beautiful flower here.” He put the paper on his desk, scribbled a few lines, and completed a picture–a beautiful flower.

More than 30 years later, that picture comes to mind as I read Genesis 1. The world was “without form.” But God brought form and light and beauty to the earth.

Sometimes my life seems disjointed. But out of confusion God brings many good and beautiful things, just as my art teacher turned the scribbles on my paper into a fine picture of a flower.

~Francis Lawer Sackitey (Eastern, Ghana)

Thought for the Day: God can bring beauty from what we see as confusion.

Prayer: When our lives seem confused, dear God, help us to see your hand at work, bringing order out of chaos. Amen.

Prayer Focus: Those who feel they have no talent