Wednesday, March 26, 2014

The Grey before the Green


I have always loved the colour green in all its many guises, from the rich and vibrant hues of spring to the deep blue-green of the ocean on a sunny day.  It speaks to me of life and never fails to touch my spirit with hope. Who would dream that a colour could do that?

I recently bought myself an artist quality set of pencil crayons thinking that I would like to reproduce some of the colours that I see in the world around me. I was surprised to discover that I couldn’t find a crayon to match the particular shade of green that I was looking for. I learned that the green I wanted would require a layering and blending of several different colours. After a good deal of experimentation I discovered that in order to achieve the best results, I had to start with grey. That surprised me.

Grey is most definitely not my favourite colour. I probably wouldn’t have bothered to include it in the box had I been in charge of packaging the crayons. In my mind if green is the colour of hope, then grey would be the colour of sadness. I’m glad I wasn’t in charge after all. The shades of grey in my box of colours are more important than I knew. 

There are grey times in my life, times when sadness is my portion. I might have wished that the One in charge hadn’t included that particular colour in the tools He uses to paint the portrait of the woman I am becoming, but now I see that the grey is only a small part of something much richer. It is a necessary step in achieving the final result. I just need to trust the Artist. 

I may be in the grey right now but it is only the grey before the green.

 

Thursday, March 13, 2014

Reconnecting

Wow! Here it is March 13 and the snowdrifts in our backyard are positively mountainous. We have a shed out back that I have to say we haven't seen the inside of since November. Access Denied so to speak. We could have cleared a path through the drifts but that would have required a lot of maintenance this winter. We decided that staying connected to our shed wasn't worth the effort.

Staying connected with people takes effort as well. There are some seasons where the maintenance of those connections seems like more work than we can handle. That's the season I have been in lately. I haven't done a very good job of keeping up with my blog or other connecting pathways like Facebook or Twitter. I don't actually have a twitter account. I've never been one for chatting on the phone and writing letters is almost a lost art. It's not surprising that I feel out of touch.

People are important though, and in honour of the coming spring (I am certain it IS coming in spite of the lack of evidence we've seen) I have decided to come out of hibernation and put the effort into re-connecting. Time to start blogging again. I may even open a twitter account. I am sure someone can show me how to go about it. You'll be hearing more from me and that's a promise.