The Hairy Pickle

I have found that things in life are rarely as they seem. I am a painter and have been one most of my life. Growing up in that background you learn a lot about appearances, and how things are rarely as they seem. This brings to mind a time when I painted some sets for a church play.
In one of them the music director wanted a foreground of snow with a Christmas tree growing out of it set against a background of a distant evergreen forest and surmounted by snowcapped mountains. Well, I roughed in the background with greens and purples for the trees and snow and painted a large oblong greenish-black shape for the core of the tree where no light would penetrate the dense foliage; then in the same greenish-black color I started randomly adding branches and foliage to what would be the bottoms and thickest parts of the boughs. The result looked horrendous - like a huge hairy pickle, but I left it to dry while basing the rest of the set and getting some other parts started. The music minister freaked. I will never for get the look on his face as he stood there, huddled with his helpers and clutching a large bottle of Tums with a death grip. I did not know the human face could turn so many colors - it was very educational. I could see him rueing the day he was reduced to enlisting a kid as the master set painter for the crowning glory of the year – his Christmas performance. But he was stuck; you could see it in the glaze of his eye and the pallor of his face. The performance was in less than two weeks, and there was no time to find another painter.
Seeing his emotional pain, I did the right thing – I worked on other parts of the set as long as I could and snickered deep within myself. It was a growing experience for him; I was just helping him to grow a bit more - like any good Christian would do. Truly!
Finally, unable to procrastinate longer and fearing the music man might expire, I started adding a slightly lighter green to the “pickle,” layering successively lighter shades until it was a leafy monarch of the wood, crowned with shimmering snow. The music man returned and again stood mouth agape. I think he was trying to figure out what had become of the monstrosity he had seen when left the church the night before. The poor man was only a musician and not blessed with the artist’s eye. He saw things as they were and not as they would be. I suppose I understand - a B flat is just a B flat and will always be a B flat, but to an artist a block of wood may hold a pair of lovers entwined in its grain or a blob of paint may become a fleecy cloud billowing in a azure sky. We are trained to see not only what is, but what can be. I do this all the time in my work but often fail to do so in my life. I see what is and forget that the Master Artisan guides the brushstrokes of my life. I forget that His skill surpasses any, and that He is not finished yet. His brush still drips with paint; His weaving is still on the loom. His chisel still rests against the stone of my heart, and the world still spins as a clay ball upon His potter’s wheel. He knows the plans He has for me.* His ways are not my ways, and I cannot comprehend them.** I need to sit back and trust in what I know: that God is good, and His love endures forever.*** We just need to trust in the skill of the Craftsman. If we don't, we'll find myself in a pickle.

*Jeremiah 29:11 **Isaiah 55:8 ***Psalm 136