I READ A DEVOTIONAL TODAY BY TIA GLENN-COOKE, A CHRISTIAN WHO BATTLES DEPRESSION. She said, “The only way I have found to keep myself alive and hopeful is to look for His divine brushstrokes through what sometimes feels like infinite smears of black; to open my heart to those who can speak truth into my life.”
by Heather MacLean Smith
As a child, I made scratch art. Did you? You color the background in different hues and then cover it in black crayon. Next you use a sharp object to etch through the black to reveal the colors. A beautiful picture emerges. When I read her words, I thought of that scratch art.
God gives us a canvas filled with His colorful glory, but life begins to color over it at times. Hurts, anger, unfortunate tragedy, violence, job loss, broken marriages, severed relationships- these blacken our lives.
However, Our precious Lord can create beauty from ugliness, turn ashes into life and purpose the things that happen to us for ministry. His love, sharper than a two edged sword,can begin to scrape away the black to reveal the work of art we are. There will still be black areas because that defines life in a fallen world. But, He uses that to bring forth something spectacular.
As He scrapes and scratches, it may hurt. Maybe we don’t get why this is happening. But eventually, others will see, and then we will as well, the marvelous work He is doing in our lives.
Where Did You Find God Today? 
Nice analogy. Yes, I did try scratch art. 🙂
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Julie, I’m running a little behind on reading my emails. And this afternoon your post on Scratch That illustrated so perfectly what my GriefShare people experience after the loss of a loved one. They not only have the original loss to work through, but all those secondary losses that are sometimes darker and more difficult to deal with than the death of the loved one.
I’ll be copying this and sharing with my group if that’s okay with you. Thank you.
DiAne
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Absolutely. You may want to make it an exercise – visual aid.
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