Living in the Color Gray

I love brand new boxes of Crayola crayons. All those colors! The new names they’ve come up with such as “macaroni and cheese” are quite clever. I call myself “color sensitive”. I guess I notice colors around me more than most people. I love so many different colors that lately I can’t really name a favorite.

When I was six I told my diary that pink and purple were my favorites. I wore baby blue in my teens to match my eyes. I’ve always gravitated to red and yellow. This came in really handy during college because those were the official colors of Chi Omega , my sorority. While I was teaching kindergarten I had a little boy who loved orange and I realized orange made me happy too! Was it because fall is my favorite time of year and orange is made by mixing red and yellow together?... Lately I’ve been drawn back to purple.

I tend to frustrate my husband because I have difficulty choosing paint colors. I want them to be just right. I’m a bit grumpy right now because the bedroom we sleep in (I hesitate calling it our master suite since its small and doesn’t have a bathroom) is the color of an eggplant and it's depressing. I know we’ll eventually get around to re-painting it but we are waiting until we decide if we’re knocking down a wall to expand it.

For the first time ever I now am the proud owner of a blue-gray dining room. I’ve never had a blue room before, other than some kid bedrooms in our last house. I LOVE having a blue-gray room. It looks sophisticated and modern. I enjoy gray when it’s on fabric and walls, but not so much up in the sky.I've been thrilled that the weather has been beautiful this fall. The days are sunny, the leaves are changing. The weather forecast for this weekend is cloudy and rainy so I need to prepare myself for the gray sky I grew accustomed to back in the Northwest.

Today someone mentioned to me that I would just have to accept the fact that right now I’m living in the color gray. As in, not clear like black & white. Living in gray doesn’t necessarily mean I’m indecisive. It means I don’t have much CONTROL but I need to persevere. Yep. Not easy for someone who likes structure and is a bit of a control freak. As a teacher I LOVED writing out lesson plans so I knew what was supposed to happen in my classroom hour by hour, day by day.

Sometimes our circumstances cause us to "live" in the color gray. Currently I have absolutely NO idea what the next six months will bring. I can’t even plan or imagine my day-to-day existence this coming spring. All I can do is live in the moment,prepare to be flexible and remember that God is in control. Am I alone in this? Probably not. There are probably lots of moms and wives who are living in the color gray. Perhaps they’re waiting on news from a medical test. Maybe their husband just lost his job. How are we to live when we can’t really make plans?

“Give your worries to God for he cares about you.” 1Peter 5:7. I know He’s working out His plan even though it might be awhile until I determine what that is. “God never stops working in our lives.”Philippians 1:6.

Right now I think it would be a good time to live each day to the fullest, count my blessings, and spend more time in the Word. Living day by day sounds like a good plan. Remember the Godspell song, “Day by Day”?
Day by Day,
Day by Day,
Oh, Dear Lord, three things I pray;
To see thee more clearly,
Love thee more dearly,
Follow thee more nearly,
Day by Day.

If faith was a color I think it would be gray.