My friend Sery always complains that I don't wear enough color. My wardrobe is full of browns and greys and blacks. I've tried to wear color, but I always feel uncomfortable with it. So, when Sery came with me to Home Depot to pick a paint color for the dining room, we somehow walked out with two cans of "Surfer." My dining room now looks like a Tiffany's box- complete with their signature white ribbon (the chair rail).
Why am I so averse to color in my life? I wonder if it is more than the fact that my pale skin looks sickly against banana yellow. Does it have more to do with all the drama around me?
I had a conversation with another friend this weekend about people's lives being colorful. I was telling him about what a blessing it has been for me to walk along side of so many people through their struggles/drama/pain-- realizing that to be a part of people's lives is messy. Each person has their own paint splattered, multi-chromatic, hectic, complicated canvass. But this "blessing" can be emotionally draining. Because I have felt for myself the pain of a breakup, death, job frustration..., I feel deep empathy pains for the people I care about and walk through life with.
It is tempting to want to keep my world drama-free and stay out of people's sticky lives. But isn't that the beauty of living in community and a relationship with God? He didn't make our world black and white. There are so many hues and if we see this world in all of its nuances, can't we then love more vibrantly?
Yes, Lord, paint my world. Let me see you through the hues of the lives around me.
