Jesus' name is God. He is Creator and powerful.

A little over a month ago, I was asked by my worship leader at church to do a painting for the church on one of the Advent themes, faith, hope, love, and peace. And, oh by the way, I was also asked if I could help Zoe do one so we could see Jesus through a child's perspective.

Though I was excited to do a painting for my church and use that time to reflect on the reason for the season, I was thinking, "[big sigh] not another task on my Christmas-time to-do list." But with a joyful heart and time put aside, I embraced the task and got more out of my time with Jesus through this painting than I initially thought I would obtain. Ironically, my word was "faith." This word has haunted me over the past year. This word has been my Christian focus for quite some time. I go through periods of time where I focus on a certain aspect of my walk with Jesus that needs a little fine-tuning. My faith department was more like in the need of a complete full body makeover, 90% totaled, broken down, beat up, Ford Pinto. To sum it up, I've never been really good at giving full control of anything over to God.

So this time spent focusing on what it means to give up my ideas of a self-controlled style of living to a God-controlled, faith based, style of living, was certainly powerful.

However, I got even more out of it through Zoe's painting and the time spent with her reflecting on what God's love looks like through her eyes.

I spent my time thinking about how it would be best to help Zoe with understanding what God's love meant. Especially since we were nearing Christmas, I was focusing on trying to keep her attention away from any Christmas-themed ideas on what God's love looks like to her, ie. a Christmas tree with presents and bows, or a manger-themed painting. My only goal was to keep her focused on what God's love looks like to her without Christmas being involved.

We made a rough drafted sketch of some ideas she had on God's love before diving into the big-girl canvas. When she was confident enough, we proceeded. She handed me a marker and placed hands towards the bottom of the canvas in order to trace them. Once that was completed she colored them in (the color she chose was yellow because God glows). Then she grabbed a blue marker and drew a huge circle just above the hands resembling the world...you know because Jesus has got the whole world in his hands. She scribbled inside the blue circle green and blue, green for the continents (which she later called planets) and blue for the oceans. She asked to spell out the different planets and oceans so that way people would know it was the Earth... I think it's just because she wanted to practice her latest hobby, writing (she takes after her mom in that respect...seriously, since she's learned to write, the girl has had to spell everything out). At the top of the canvas she colored in about three inches of solid blue and just below that some stars for the heavens. Under that and just above the world she drew a solid line of hearts to show that God's love covers the whole Earth in which he carries.

She reminded me, in her own innocent way, that God carries me through His abundant love. What an amazing kid. When I saw the video, I immediately started to choke up. Tears ran down my face while I sat in amazement and overwhelming pride for this 5-year old. I know I've felt proud of others in my life but this was truly the most proud moment I've ever had, as if she were my own kid. Mostly, I was proud that she had this innocent ability to move and inspire not just me but other members of our congregation.

She finished her painting with a story on our Lord, which is the title of this post:

Jesus' name is God. He is Creator and powerful.

She's exactly right. He is so powerful that he can speak through a 5-year old little girl into the hearts of his full grown children.

AMEN!