It Will All Work Out!
Did you ever watch the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross back in the 80′s and 90′s? It was on PBS and it was probably the most boring show on TV, but sometimes there was just nothing else to watch. For those who have not seen this program and those who just want to remember those late nights that you could not sleep and turned Bob on here is a clip.
I remember watching Bob Ross and the most amazing part was when he would be painting a long and things were coming together and then all of the sudden he would put a big black line somewhere on the canvas. I would be so shocked by this random line and think to myself “He has just ruined that beautiful painting”. Sometimes he would leave the line and work on something else. Then he would come back to the line and finish what he had started. As he continued to paint I started to see what he saw the whole time. He would transform that black line into a tree or a mountain. As the episode came to a close, he would put the last few touches on his materpiece and then end the segment with “Happy Painting and God Bless my friend” Everytime the painting was beautiful and I was amazed at how well everything worked together. I wondered why I even doubted him.
In our lives we have similar experiences. We are the painting and our life seems to be turning out just as planned, then all of the sudden out of no where we feel something happens ruins our painting. It seems to be a black line down the canvas of our lives. When these moments happen, what do we do? we turn to the Painter or God and say “what do you think you are doing?” This is not how it is suppose to look. After time we gain perspective and as we look back at the situation we realize things just worked out. It might be years till we see the masterpiece start to make sense, we just can’t give up on the Painter.
I have had many things in my life recently work out that initially I thought were not going to turn out. Has everything worked out as I had hoped and dreamed, no. My plan is to continue to trust in God…I know He has the paint brush in His hand and is painting a beautiful picture. My job is to be the paint, the brushes, and the canvas, ready to be used as tools in His hands. As long as I’m doing what I know I should be doing God will guide me to where I need to be.
I love this. I also loved when Bob would say some variation on there being no such thing as mistakes, only “happy accidents.” Though I know God will never make mistakes in his masterpieces, I think WE can make mistakes in life if we don’t learn to make anything of them. Bob taught me that when *I* do something wrong, I can turn what may have been something that at first looked bad into something beautiful. We all do things that we regret but hopefully those regrets have made us more understanding, more forgiving, more loving, more patient, less judgmental, less inclined to anger, and much more beautiful, happy people.