The Color of Thoughts

I would like to be an artist, but I am not. I do Stampin’ Up, but I copy designs I find in books. I use a color wheel to help me decide which colors will look nice together. When I taught nursing, my student’s got used to my “heart” drawing. It was a square divided into four “rooms” or chambers. I am not really musical either. I used to be able to play the violin, but that was almost 30 years ago. I can’t really sing that well. I can carry a tune, but I have a range of maybe one octave. Marissa can sing and incredible 2-1/2 octaves. She has a beautiful voice. But, I do have words. I have all these seemingly disorganized and unrelated thoughts and somehow God brings them all together to form one idea. If each thought were a color, I wonder what color my final thought would be?

My virtual friend Amanda, from hiddenart, is an artist. She creates beautiful pages in her altered book, her thoughts about life are whimsical and the descriptions she uses in her writing so clear that you can imagine you are part of the scene. She left me a comment the other day that got me thinking:

Another paradox, we usually grow the most in our Christian walk when in the valley, not on the mountain. I’m sure this is for the same reason, in our weakness we allow ourselves to rely fully on God.

As this thought wandered through my brain, it ran into other thoughts that have taken up residency in my gray matter. The first idea is an idea from Sketches of Jewish Social Life. In chapter 6, “Jewish Homes,” Edersheim writes:

Even the relationship in which God presented Himself to His people, as their Father, would give peculiar strength and sacredness to the bond which connected earthly parents with their offspring.

Ever since I was a freshman in college, I have not been able to read a book without a pencil in my hand. I didn’t like using a highlighter. The bright yellow (the only color widely available when I went to school eons ago) hurt my eyes. Besides, I often wanted to write my ideas in the margin. Highlighters don’t work well for writing script. Edersheim’s book is quickly getting underlined and bears the mark of having been carefully read. I underlined this quote when I first skimmed the chapter. I put a little star in the margin the when I went back to carefully read it. I consider the parent-child relationship a sacred stewardship. This quote seemed to lend support to that thought. The church is called the Bride of Christ. Surely, the relationship of Christ to the Church should should give the same strength and sacredness to the husband-wife relationship.

Finally, I have written before of the difficulty I have maintaining consistency in my parenting. Marissa needs a lot of structure. She does not handle a change in routine very well. I am not really, by nature, a structured and organized person. Parenting her requires me to behave in a way contrary to my nature and expends a lot emotional energy. So, when things are going well, I choose to believe that Marissa has matured and no longer needs as much external control. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and back-off. Guess what? When I go off the watch, things deteriorate. Marissa gets behind on her school work. Oh, she still does school everyday; she just doesn’t accomplish much. Marissa’s room slowly turns into a disaster. I find spaghetti sauce on my living room carpet. Our house becomes a boot camp… things shape up for awhile, but then: a never ending cycle of inconsistency.

As I thought about Amanda’s comment, I realized how I handle my relationship with God is just like how I parent. When things are going well, I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t need so much structure. I have arrived. Having a set time for Bible study and prayer? Oh, I don’t need that anymore. After all, I am walking in perfect communion with God. I am praying without ceasing… Or not. What brings me into the valley? Sometimes, rarely, I go into the valley because of an external pressure, which is completely out of my control . Usually, I wander away from God and into the valley on my own initiative. My life gets messy and I look around and realize I am in a valley. I begin to cling to God. I would like to think that the realization that this occurs will prevent further descents, but I know better.

I started thinking, perhaps God uses the parent-child and bride analogies because they are common to all cultures. My family is a parable. When I read about a parent and a child or a bride in the Bible, I have an earthly, physical picture in my brain. This idea communicates to me. I interpret my relationship with God based on what occurs in my family. I can examine this mental picture everyday and, as I look on these relationships, I grasp spiritual truth. So, what color do you think an epiphany is? I would have to say golden-brown: an earthy, simple, common color that radiates the Shekinah glory of God.