A Blank Canvas

We women tend to fantasize a whole lot. We spend years dreaming about our husband will be like, our kids, job, first house. We have the decor, couch and color pictured in our heads before we even move out of our parents home. But then we learn, all too quickly, that our reality isn't lining up with our picture. Now we are discontent.Recently my husband and I changed jobs. As we processed through the shift I became aware that we kept handing God our own picture. I mean we left some of it blank for God to paint on but overall we had filled in the canvas.God handed it back. "Try again."Hum...What is he wanting? So we painted our picture again, this time leaving more room for him to add his strokes of color."Try again," he said."Really? What are you wanting God?"Then it hit us like ton of bricks. He wanted it blank. He wanted us to hand him a blank canvas. No strokes of "this is the kind of work I use to do, this is the kind of place I used to work, this is the kind of place I want to be, this is the kind of people I want to work with.." None of it. Blank.He wanted to draw a new painting for us, one with different textures, colors, heus we hadn't seen before, new. And for that he would need a blank canvas.I gotta tell you it's hard to hand God a blank canvas. But there we were learning what the Apostle Paul had learned thousands of years prior, the secret to contentment, a blank canvas. "Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:11-13)So how about it? What color is your canvas?