Choices are for the Living

Painted Colors

All through my life I have been painted different colors

Some for me, and some for others

In the far distance I heard you calling my name

Within the season I would be changed

All alone I open my heart

That’s all you needed to make a start

You came right in and made a home

Where you cleansed me, healed me, and called me your own

You stayed with me while I cried my tears

And comforted me through my fears

Fears that I was forever lost,

Fears I would pay the final cost

Death by fire was where I was at,

But I looked different from where you sat

You could see a child, who needed you,

You could see a child broken in two

Through the seasons you chipped away the old paint

And colored me the same color as one of your saints

The color of righteousness, which is white as snow,

Now you’re with me wherever I go

Thank you Lord for chipping away all the old paint,

Then with Your mercy, You marked me one of Your saints.

Romans 5:20 

But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound. 
Abounded:  more, it exists in abundance (Vines) 

photo credit - By Pictolicious Nilanjan Bhattacharya

Sin is never in a nonexistent mode.  It is always growing and available, but grace abounds much more.  No matter where you have been if you’re not in hell you still have grace.

I must confess that some of my life colors were not so attractive.   For a long time I had let other people influence me more than God.  I let them color me with their paints.  When they were finished, I was no longer on the canvas of my own life.  I was on the canvas of other people’s thoughts and opinions.  My color had changed.   I let the food of this world almost starve me to death.  As I grew in wisdom and faith, I noticed my canvas started to look different.  The colors were fading away. In my mind I was standing in the art gallery; there was a man holding a paintbrush.  As I watched in silence, I notice the painting He was working on was mine.  He was dipping His brush into a satin white.  He was repainting what the world had painted.  With one stroke of His brush, I was washed new.