The Painter's Canvas

Happy Father's Day to Dads everywhere!

Today in Sunday School we talked about where we get our identity and what we're chasing.

Our leader asked what we would do if that source were threatened.

So it got me to thinking about the gift that we're given,

 every day.

Whether it's a blank page, a piece of modeling clay, or a stark white canvas,

we get to write, mold, paint our stories.

Who and what influences our words, our colors, our shape?

How do we choose one over another?

And what happens when the sun sets on our day before we've finished what we'd hoped to get written?  Sculpted? Painted?

I don't have many of these answers. Only more questions.

How do we know that we matter?

Where does our value come from?

What exactly is it that's defining us?

It gives me incredible hope to know that, in the end,

I have a choice about what's on my canvas, every day.

I also get to choose who guides that, 

whom I choose to be influenced by, to mentor me.

And in whom and in what I believe.

Even when we find ourselves chasing something elusive.

It's not about being perfect, because it's actually when our pot is cracked that the light can shine through, 

outside to inside and inside to outside.

This I know: Every day, I can choose joy, even when the sun can't set soon enough and I eagerly await that clean slate and another chance to get it right, that do-over, tomorrow.

Have you ever asked yourself what you're chasing?

Thank you, Lynn, for a philosophical reflection today.