Throw the Paint
Sometimes in life, you just gotta throw the paint and see what sticks.
Do the thing. Make the stuff. Launch the idea.
But if you’re anything like me, that sounds terrifying. I like to see the plan, think about the plan, talk about the plan, think about the plan, prepare for the plan, think about the plan, then after some more thinking….
DO the plan.
Throwing paint without knowing what will happen is terrifying. It has NO PLAN. But life doesn’t always stick to the plan. And sometimes your best-laid plans flop. What do you do then?
You throw the paint. And see what sticks.
I had a lot of paint thrown at one life canvas. Well, not thrown. More like meticulously placed. I call this canvas Dance Education. And I was good at it. I danced all through elementary school to college. I thought I’d be teaching dance my whole life. But when I started having babies, I put that canvas aside. It’s metaphorically collecting dust in my closet.
So I threw paint on a new canvas. Motherhood. Oh, how I love this canvas! And it’s not meticulous at all. Some brush strokes are soft and light, some are dark and heavy. But I have enjoyed adding layer after layer to it.
A few years ago, as I worked on my Motherhood canvas, I decided I needed a new challenge. So I starting throwing paint on a Small Business canvas, and I spent a lot of time meticulously painting it. But after a year of meticulously painting, I got burnt out. So I stuffed it in our spare room. Sometimes I take it out and look at how pretty it was, then I carefully put it back.
This last canvas I’ve been working on came quite by accident. I was pregnant with our fourth, a girl, when ideas for this new canvas flooded my mind.
But I resisted.
That canvas is too big for me, I thought. It will never work.
But the thoughts persisted. So I carefully dragged it out, pulled back the shrink wrap, and dabbled some paint on it. To my surprise, the paint stuck. I added a bit more. And a bit more. To be honest, it still makes me nervous. It’s a really big canvas.
I call it AUTHOR & ILLUSTRATOR.
But I keep working at it because each time I add more paint, I like it even more. I even like it hanging right next to my Motherhood canvas. And that is a miracle in itself.
There are other canvases I juggle too. Marriage. Discipleship. Homemaking. Sisterhood. Each is beautiful. And as I’ve gotten older, I’ve embraced the messy brush strokes that come with each.
Maybe, like me, you have several canvases you’re juggling all at once. Maybe you’re meticulously focusing on just one. Or maybe you have a canvas, still in the shrink wrap, just waiting to be touched. Perhaps you could throw some paint on it and see what happens.
