Drawing a Picture
My oldest grandson spent Spring Holidays at my house. Usually, he is here with his three brothers, but this time he was all by himself. He enjoyed the aloneness and the special attention he got one on one. We went to Winter Jam Thursday night to bring his Spring Holidays to a close. Other than that we didn't do a lot of going, just mostly hung out at the house. He loves to sit outside and just take in all the beauty. I know he gets that from me. But by the end of the week, I think he actually was bored and missed having to share everything with his brothers.
Friday he asked me for some paper and pencils and he drew. He is quite the artist. I told him that was a talent he gets from my mother. She was an artist also. The drawing talent skipped me, but I did get my love of writing from my mother. I thought about all the things we automatically pass on to our kids and grandkids and I suppose great and great-great, generation to generation. I know some things are obvious like hair and eye color, but our personalities likes and dislikes actually are inherited to an extent also.
I wondered if Mother had met the person up in Heaven that came generations before her and passed on the writing and drawing to her. I wondered if when I get to Heaven I will get to meet them too. I thought about how I can see so much of her in me and my kids and grandkids. I can make a long list of all the strengths and weaknesses I have simply because of the genes I inherited from my mother.
On the other side of the coin, I know nothing about my father. I wondered if all the qualities I have that don't match up with my mother's personality came from him. Sadly I know I won't ever know that, not here in this life anyway.
I try to draw a picture in my mind what he might have looked like, what kind of person he might have been. I can piece together a portrait of sorts by all the things I am that my mother wasn't.
I believe my dad was very independent, pretended to need no one, but deep inside he really did. I think whenever someone made him cry he tried very hard not to let them see. I believe he was a worker bee with boundless energy. I believe he hated trying new foods and would not have eaten radishes or cabbage if someone threatened to hang him up by his toes. I believe he liked everything to be neat and orderly and hated clutter so much that he was often accused of throwing things away every time something came up missing. I believe if someone asked him to make a list of things that made him truly happy, being all alone would have been at the top of his list followed closely by being outside just sitting taking in every single piece of beauty that surrounded him.
Yes, all the qualities and quirks and quaky stuff I possess all came from somewhere I suppose. Each of us is kind of like a hand made quilt pieced together passed down from generation to generation. Many of us don't know our fathers, some don't know our mothers. Some may know either. I spend a lot of time wondering, but I know all this time spent wondering is really a lot of time wasted. Why wonder? I should be totally ecstatic that I exist and I contain a million and one little quilt pieces that make me who I am. I have the awesome honor of seeing little pieces of myself in my children and grandchildren. My earthly father never had that privilege!
But I do have a Heavenly Father who sees me as I am. He sees all the good in me when I have trouble seeing it. God made each of us. I believe He painted a special picture of me in His mind long before I came to be. He knew the gifts that He would place inside and knew how He wanted me to use them. He knew I would have strengths and weaknesses, qualities and quirks, but still, He knew He would love me no matter what.
As much as I would have loved to have met my earthly father, I have to know whatever part of me came from him is good because God pieced me together. He painted this picture. As we accept ourselves as we are even if we don't know exactly how we came to be, we can become all that God our Father intends for us to be. We never have to be alone. He loves us!
Spend some one on one time with your Father this week. He knows you better than anyone. Why not get to know him more?
Jeremiah 1:5 "Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart;
jbp