A dear friend of mine gave me a picture she had made one year for my birthday. She's a talented artist and had cut a rectangle from a nicely grained piece of scrap paneling.
She sanded the shiny side of the wood and painted a picture of a cottage doorway with a brick sidewalk, potted geraniums and trailing ivy.
To the left of the picture, she hand-lettered the following verse:
The Lord who opens doors for you
And ask you to walk through,
Will always be there by your side, Walking close to you.
At the bottom she wrote the words for Revelation 3:8, "See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut."
To finish the picture, she created a frame from pieces of old molding, painted it green and distressed the edges. It really made a wonderful gift.
But one day several years later I noticed it - there was a missing letter S in the verse - in the second line, the word "ask" should have been "asks."
Being a writer, it really bothered me, knowing the S was missing. Every time I looked at the picture, all I saw was the missing letter. I didn't see the friend who lovingly created it, I didn't think about her encouraging message - only the missing S!
I studied the picture from all angles and tried to think of how I could fix it, but there was no room to add an S in that spot. It would have been too obvious and ruined the picture if I tried to sand off the word and redo that. So I had to learn to DEAL with my discomfort or stash the picture away somewhere.
The picture hangs above the desk where I write now, a reminder of how much God loves us, in spite of our fault_, flaw_, and _ins. It also reminds me to pray daily for my friend who is going through a difficult place in her life. The missing S isn't nearly as important as the person who missed it.
Thank You Lord for Friends!
She sanded the shiny side of the wood and painted a picture of a cottage doorway with a brick sidewalk, potted geraniums and trailing ivy.
To the left of the picture, she hand-lettered the following verse:
The Lord who opens doors for you
And ask you to walk through,
Will always be there by your side, Walking close to you.
At the bottom she wrote the words for Revelation 3:8, "See, I have placed before you an open door that no one can shut."
To finish the picture, she created a frame from pieces of old molding, painted it green and distressed the edges. It really made a wonderful gift.
But one day several years later I noticed it - there was a missing letter S in the verse - in the second line, the word "ask" should have been "asks."
Being a writer, it really bothered me, knowing the S was missing. Every time I looked at the picture, all I saw was the missing letter. I didn't see the friend who lovingly created it, I didn't think about her encouraging message - only the missing S!
I studied the picture from all angles and tried to think of how I could fix it, but there was no room to add an S in that spot. It would have been too obvious and ruined the picture if I tried to sand off the word and redo that. So I had to learn to DEAL with my discomfort or stash the picture away somewhere.
The picture hangs above the desk where I write now, a reminder of how much God loves us, in spite of our fault_, flaw_, and _ins. It also reminds me to pray daily for my friend who is going through a difficult place in her life. The missing S isn't nearly as important as the person who missed it.
Thank You Lord for Friends!
3 comments:
Beautiful. And one of my fears
of blogging, I am a poor speller (thank you Jesus for spell checker). My sentences run in fragments, but somehow, someway God has still uses me. Warts, misspellings, fragmented sentences and all =)
Great post. I'm really enjoying your blog! You should take a picture of the painting and add to your post - that way we can all see the beautiful picture :o)
The painting is awesome! She has dome some good work :o)
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