WIP

WIP - a common abbreviation for Work In Progress.

This has been a summer of projects, many involving paint, sand paper and endless possibilities. I have taken over a spot of the garage, where a plank balanced over the rims of the wheelbarrow has made an excellent impromptu holder of paint and other fun tools.

Coming in to clean up after “playing” with a combination of paints on my hands and dust on my feet (projects that occur while barefoot are just so much better); I am excited by seeing ideas take shape. Sometimes, they turned out better than I imagined. At other times, the results were just okay or not quite as expected. That is the fun of and the challenge of WIP. The expected result may not necessarily occur, but the shaping of an idea into a newly finished project, while overcoming challenges and using creative imaginings throughout is great.

This idea struck me in a new way the other day as I looked at my hands, holding a paint brushed and covered in a combination of blue and brown paint flecks. I am also a WIP! I am not even close to declaring myself as a finished product that has met my end goals. Instead, I am in the process of a project shaped over a lifetime. And, not only does this include me, but those around me as well. We are not finished projects, ready for display. But, works in progress, in action, and in practice. The possibilities are indeed endless! I encourage you as a fellow WIP to go, learn, try and create.

Praise from the Garage Floor

I was sitting in the garage floor yesterday, painting a small window a lovely blue color, and listening to Rend Collective Experiment from my computer.  Singing along to some of the songs, I started thinking about worship and praise, and how my definitions of what that means narrows my width of worship and praise opportunities. 

Let me back up – worship and praise of what?  Worshipping and praising God, taking time for an action of gratitude, a heart of thanks for all that my God is and was and will be.  It’s an act that is uplifting, refreshing, energizing, and at times draining. 

So with that part said….

I’m sitting in the floor, paint brush in hand, and thinking about how worship is more than one style or one type of art and how my very definition limits me.  There is a painter who paints to music and creates incredible paintings as an act of worship.  The gardener who tends the plants so carefully to create a living canvas of color is acting out worship.  A dancer, with every fine tuned motor skill practiced, can move in time to worship.  A musician, a writer, a sculptor, a teacher, a child playing in the sprinkler… the list goes on and on.  Worship can take so many forms; I don’t want my definition to be so limiting – especially when we were made with so many ways to express praise. 

I’m going to start looking for new ways to praise, intentional actions to thank God for his goodness.  I wonder what forms it will take.