How to Make Your Life Beautiful

When I asked my 11-year old nephew to help me paint my desk chair, I wasn’t expecting the free pointers on my painting style I got in return.

“Spray paint?” his eyes lit up. “If you’re talking spray painting, I’m your man!”

When I informed him it was the old-fashioned kind of painting —- with a can of paint and a brush — his enthusiasm quickly dimmed. {But I added a little cash incentive and he reluctantly agreed.}

My chair is a 1940s model that I’ve recovered and been meaning to paint for years, with wood that’s dark, scratched and uneven. I am a rather sloppy painter who just wants to get the job done, not bothering with a drop cloth or tape.

As we work my nephew studies my painting technique for awhile then offers some advice. “You know if you wiped the brush off against the can like this" {he demonstrates for me} "and painted on the chair in a straight line, it would be neater and look a lot better.” 

He shows me his brush strokes on the chair’s arm. “See? None of that crazy back and forth and swishing around that you’re doing.” {He waves his brush in the air haphazardly slinging paint around to make his point.}

I tell him it’s a little easier for him to paint the flat chair arms tidily than it is for me to paint around the curvy chair legs. But I say that hopefully when we’re finished, maybe we won’t notice a few bare spots and messy brush strokes because all we’ll see is the entire chair that looks a lot prettier painted than it does right now.

If only that were a foreshadowing of our lives - - a blessing of sorts. 

And maybe it is. 

A complete life that looks wholly beautiful the farther into our journey we travel. Isn’t that what we want?

The wounds of our life journeys inevitably leave scars, but they lend an air of wisdom, grace and a sort of unconventional loveliness to us. 

All those people and places and plans that create the experiences of our lives rarely allow us to follow a straight line or tie up loose ends neatly. 

There are drips and puddles and missed patches and color in places where there ought not to be. 

{I'm sure you can relate?}

When I was in Italy this summer, I walked over a myriad of bumpy cobblestones on skinny streets, some that dead-ended into doorways or walls or curved around a corner I couldn’t see past.

I climbed steep stairways with what seemed like a thousand steps, out of breath when I reached the top. 

I followed pathways down hillsides with sheer drops into what looked like oblivion. 

Touring around Lake Como, I was so hot and tired, I’d wonder if I’d ever make it back to my {unfortunately un-air-conditioned} hotel room to rest and put my feet up. 

These steps I walked through Italy painted a picture for me of the scenes of my life. 

There have been plenty of dead-end opportunities that seemed so promising but went nowhere, relationships that heart-rendingly didn’t work out, friendships that painfully grew unrepairable, and bewildering experiences that left me wondering how I could ever pick myself up and move on.

But in Italy just when I thought I couldn’t take another step, I’d find myself in a clearing with a breathtaking view of a lake. 

Or in the midst of a garden with a feast set out on a table for us to enjoy lunch on the lawn under the shade of the trees. The 24 of us in our retreat group sat exhausted, but savored the food, the drinks and the company. We all knew we'd probably never be together in this place again.

And only afterward did I realize the difficult journey had been worth it.

It was true in Italy, just as it is now, and just as it will be true for all the days yet to come. 

Every paint stroke brushed on the canvas of our lives through our experiences and relationships and circumstances transforms us. 

Making us beautiful beyond our blemishes. Content yet incomplete. Hopeful yet unfulfilled. Peaceful yet unsatisfied. Redeemed yet imperfect.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. - Ec. 3:11

After the paint dried on my chair and I assessed our work, I had to admit my nephew’s painting efforts did look much better than mine did. 

So I took some sandpiper and roughed up the arms a little to match all the spots I missed on the legs. 

I wonder if this chair could be the start of a beautiful painting partnership between my nephew and me? 

He's got lots of free tips to offer and I've got a lot more furniture to make beautiful.

I'm having coffee with my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart. Join me there by clicking the image to read more posts!