A Miracle Every Time

Our daughter occupied our garage last summer with a very big painting. Parents will make any sacrifice for their kids, right? So my car spent six dirty weeks out under the oak trees around our house. I tried to be nice about it.
The painting is a whopping 8 feet by 28 feet. We never saw the whole painting at once because she couldn’t unroll it all in our garage at one time. She had to paint it in sections.
I’m one of those stage moms who can’t wait to tell you about their kids’ latest accomplishment. I know lots of dads who have the same problem.
Let’s just chalk it up to hormones; after all, I carried the child around in my womb for nine months and I really never got over the fact. I don’t know what excuse the dads have.
My friend gave birth last week and it was a miracle. A new baby, adopted or home-grown, is a miracle every single time.
Every mom knows that it is the lifetime of small daily miracles that add up.
I walked in on one such miracle last Monday night.
After years of painting, Anna got to have her first one-man exhibit. The gallery walls were filled with her paintings in every hue of the rainbow.
Even though our home is wall-papered with realistic paintings she has created over the years of recognizable humans and animals, this recent body of work, as they say in art circles, was contemporary and non-representational which is an academic way of saying it looks like any four-year-old could do it.
Of course, since we watched the process take place in our garage all summer, I know that it actually takes skill to pull together the correct complementary colors, establish depth and tone, then, delineate the whole canvas using illustrative techniques.
This is a good place to mention how thankful our family is to the teachers at TJC and UNT who have poured their efforts into getting her to this point.
The painting from our garage filled up a huge wall in the gallery. Gigantic.
And astonishing. I can’t even describe it.
Anyway, that was not the miracle; even though I do think it reflects well on the Creator that He can make people who can then turn around and create such amazing art.
Nor is it the miracle that someone I gave birth to turned out to be so talented, although that is kind of surprising when you think about it.
Or even that she has the discipline, dedication, and vision to focus so much creative energy.
Nope, those are the everyday miracles I’ve lived with so long as a mom that I’ve adjusted to the brilliance they cast over our little world.
At our house we say “Every human is Handcrafted.”
Anna purposely used the exhibit to intertwine her relationships together. She got so much joy out of bringing together the people she loves and introducing them to each other.
The Handcrafted quality of life was the miracle that jumped off the walls and communicated itself to me again as I stood there surrounded by her beautiful paintings and her even more precious friends, meeting many of them, both the paintings and the humans, for the first time.
For me the real miracle is learning from each of my children one at a time that each and every person is fearfully and wonderfully made by an Artist who is pleased with His work. That includes being pleased with the way He made me, and somehow I find myself surprised by that fact most of all.
That’s the small daily miracle of last Monday night. That and the fact that the collection of all his creatures together, like a beautiful exhibit of His Handiwork, gives us insight into His creativity and greatness.
Oh yeah, and by the way, if you know anyone with a really big, empty wall, I sure would like to keep my car in the garage next summer.

Cathy Primer Krafve, aka Checklist Charlie, lives in Texas where the scenery and the people give her plenty of opportunity to admire God’s handiwork.