Every Friday Lisa-Jo Baker invites women (men, too, I guess) over to her blog to get a word prompt. Simply start a new blog post and write for five minutes on that topic. It's that simple! Although, it's not always easy.
Today's Five Minute Friday word is Paint.
GO
I enjoy painting. It's colorful. It's a fun kind of messy. You can roll it on smooth, create some nice brush strokes, or you can splatter it all over the place like crazy. I prefer that third method.
It's amazing how a new coat or color can change so much.
A white room looks open and clean, but if the paint starts to crack, peel, and get dirty, it doesn't look great. If we put a new coat over top, it will look bright again, but there will be bumps and blemishes. But if you sand the wall first, then put on the new coat, it will look like new again.
Say you have a room that's painted dark green. Only those who absolutely love that color are going to feel comfortable there. Otherwise, it feels gloomy, dark, and small. Dark colors can be depressing. But if you change the walls in the exact same room to, say, bright yellow, suddenly you feel happier, and the room looks brighter and more open.
The same goes for us. And I'm not just talking about clothing or makeup, although it applies there, too. But ourselves. Our hearts, souls, minds.
We start out as perfect little babies, but soon we start sinning, getting hurt, getting dirty, and pretty soon we're not gonna look so great. We can act like everything's okay and try to keep the blemishes inside, but eventually it will show no matter how hard we try. Like putting a new coat of paint over the old one. Or we can just let it take over us. Become depressed and gloomy, like the dark green room.
But if we go to the Lord and ask for His forgiveness, dig into the Word, and allow the Lord to heal us first, then when we put on that new coat, there's no ugliness underneath to creep through. We'll be like the dark room after it's painted bright yellow.
Recently I had the opportunity to attend a women's conference, and one of the speakers, Sharon Norris Elliott, talked about putting on the armor of God, and how it won't fit right if we put it on over top of the other stuff we're wearing. We've got to remove our bad stuff before putting on our power suit, so that it will fit right and protect us in the way it's supposed to. You can get her book, Power Suit: The Armor of God Fit for the Feminine Frame, here.
To read more posts on Paint, click here. (Scroll down a bit to read Lisa-Jo's post and then scroll down some more to see the list of other bloggers who participated.) To find out more about Five Minute Friday, how it started, and how you can join in, click the button below.
