He sees color in gray.

One of those days... Your alarm goes off, but still you manage to sleep an extra twenty minutes, getting late to wherever you have to go... You groan as you walk through the doors. The day hasn't even started and you're already worn out. You're overwhelmed with absolute nothingness, and you honestly can't remember the last time you felt so exhausted. Math class starts. You get the first answer wrong.. You sigh. Another thing to remind you of your failures. You look around the class, everyone seems to be getting it...You try and try again, you still don't get the answer... What's the point to this? I can't do anything right, why do I even try? Class bell rings and you rush out. The day goes by..You forget your homework, your consumed with worries, you bump into someone, say something you didn't mean to say.. Whenever you're left alone to your thoughts, your brain automatically shifts to melodramatic pasts and hurtful memories that only add more sighs and groans to your day... Someone walks up to ask you how things are going, you smile and say "Alright"...because there's no quick and clear way to explain how you're really feeling.. Besides, maybe if we act like we're okay, we'll eventually BE okay... So why not act like everything's good? Why not try to shake away the pain?

I think many of us  have a tendency to secretly live in our hurt. Outside we seem perky beings just living our "awesome" lives, when inside we're truly torn apart. We don't realize it, but the more we try to push it away, the deeper the wound gets, the heavier our days seem.We keep living our lives above the pain, because it's "easier", it's "better"..  It's as if we're afraid to admit we're hurt. Why? The cycle I see, in my life, and many people:  we're hurt, we shut down and we step away. We step away from people, from feelings, and sadly and sometimes even unintentionally, from God. 

A bible verse that has kept ringing at the back of my mind is Psalms 147:3 :

"God heals the brokenhearted, and bandages their wounds" 

God promises us healing...How come is it that He many times is the last one we run to when we're hurt? Why is it that we're afraid to let God in on what we're  feeling? 

I struggle to answer this question even now, when I'm supposed to be giving a conclusion to all this... 

In Art class the other day, we were to copy a picture and give color to it.. I chose a scenery of a mountainous area by a lake, with the rays of the sunset dispersing through the valley of the mountain...As you can imagine, I had to use several colors. I asked my teacher what color I should use for the area by the Sun. She said gray. Gray..? I thought it odd gray would make the picture look better, but went ahead anyway.. As I applied it by the sun rays, I began to see the contrasts, and I saw how the picture was coming together... 

Just as I finished,  I couldn't help but think of how the gray, though plain and tedious as it is, made the rays burst in color even more so than before...  I think God works the same way.  Sometimes it seems like many areas of our lives are painted in gray, we can't see the end result of our painting, we're confused by it and continue to remain in the hurt... But God uses the gray in our lives so we focus on the rays of Sun: His healing, His strength, His love. God uses gray in our lives so our final picture turns out truly and completely beautiful. We just have to keep moving, not letting our hurts stop us from truly living; and trusting that He knows what He's doing with his paintbrush, He sees how it'll turn out in the end. 

"You, O LORD, keep my lamp burning; my God turns my darkness into light."- Psalms 18:28