Too Busy!

By Hazel Holland

After discovering this painting the other day that I had "abandoned" to that box in the garage, I picked it up and was immediately shocked to see how "busy" this picture was... waaaaaaaaaay too busy!

Then the memories began to flood my mind...  I had painted this picture soon after my son was born, and right after painting the poppies... "A Burst of Sunshine".

I had tried my hand at using a palette knife instead of a brush because I thought that it would be much faster.  It was.  Never mind the fact that I had gotten carried away with the number of flowers I had tried to squeeze into the vase...  I was just "practicing" anyway, and had no serious intention of keeping this trial run.  But like a lot of my other "trial runs" this one too found its way into that forgotten box in the garage, just waiting to be brought back to life at the right time... His time.

Looking at the painting now it is so obviously tooooooo busy!  It reminds me of how busy and full my life was back then as I tried to juggle my new role as a mother with working outside of the home.  No wonder I crammed so many daisies into one small vase.  There was no time to paint a larger vase!

But I could have stopped painting the daisies at any time.  No one had a knife to my throat demanding that I continue to paint them. I was in total control of the palette knife, but I got carried away in my exuberance and joy at seeing flowers materialize so quickly before my eyes.  They reminded me of God's Smile.

By saying that, I'm not at all suggesting that God was smiling at my busyness.  Not at all!  He was smiling at me because He had given me a love for His creation, and now I was beginning to exercise the artistic gift He had given me...

I was taking baby steps back then, but as the years rolled by I matured in my gift and learned how to bring better balance into my pictures... and into my life.  My focus and goals began to change as God became by number one priority.  More balance was restored to the busyness of my life as I began to desire hearing God's voice and knowing His heart...

However, I must confess that sometimes I still get carried away with painting more "daisies" than I can ever fit into the "vase".  In my exuberance and joy at living life in the Spirit I forget that there are still only 24 hours in a day.  Do you know what I mean? 

We need to remember that only as we rest in His love will we be able to hear God's heart for others.  My desire is to let Him show me how to paint "daisies" so that others will see His smile upon them... even in the midst of their busyness.  Then perhaps some will stop just long enough in the midst of their busy day to smell the sweet perfume of his presence, and decide to stop crowding Him out so that they can can paint daisies, too.