“Dear God, please, please, PLEEEASE bring my stuffed animals to life!” I cry out. While sitting on my bed, hands clasped together in desperate prayer, I continue to plead my case with God: “I know you can do it! Pleeeeeasee!”.
As a child I believed, I truly believed that God could do this if he wanted to. That child-like faith can move mountains so certainly it could also bring my stuffies to life! I loved reading the Raggedy Ann and Andy books (as well as the Chronicles of Narnia series). I was caught up in those stuffed animals’ adventures when they were alone, and the wonder of it happening with my own well-loved stuffed animals opened a whole new world of imagination. But I truly wanted those imaginings to be possibilities, to be real. I achingly wanted God to breathe life into just one of my stuffies so I could talk to it and go on adventures in its world. However, I was pretty sure this is not the kind of prayer He answers outside of the book world. But just in case… I tirelessly asked.
Many moons later He did answer that prayer, just not in the way my childhood self had expected. He used a more natural method to bring my stuffies to life. He gave me Boomer, a Maltipoo dog, 8 pounds big. He is oh-so cute! And he truly looks like a stuffed animal.
Boomer, my real-live stuffy!
Every time I think of how fantastical his cuteness is, I am reminded of my childhood prayers and I know this is God’s way of answering those for “the little kid in me”.
God is always bringing things to life. Our whole world started with him doing this very thing. Even after birth, he keeps on giving us life, and life more abundantly!
“I came that they may have life, and have it in abundance [to the full, till it overflows].” John 10:10b AMP
Being made in His image I love to create, too. Adding color to art is like breathing life into my creations, just as God breathed life into us.
Have you noticed how colors can infuse art with a life of its own? Colors dance and interact with each other, and with the absence of color (the white spaces). Complementary colors excite each other and make us notice them. Contrasting colors like white and black draw our eye to different parts of a painting you may otherwise not notice. Cooler colors are calming (blues, greens) and warmer colors like reds and yellows excite! Colors draw our attention to certain parts of the artwork as they tell us things about the picture, as they activate emotions inside us to rise up in response. We may leave encouraged or inspired, or we may leave with a sense of wonder or calm.
Colors are to a painting as words are to the page. And we know words have power.
“The tongue has the power of life and death.” Proverbs 18:21a NIV.
God spoke the whole universe into being with His words. His words have creating and building power. Our words do too; our words can build us up or tear us down.
1Thessa 5:11 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.”
There isn’t much more meaningful to me than to know that my words or my art have touched the heart of another. That they have breathed a little life into someone and brought some added light, built up some hope, or increased the joy in their world.
What do you do to encourage or bring life to others? What is most meaning for to you?
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