A day or so ago I was watching a video on how to make a fun-looking greeting card from one of the talented women that I purchase card-making products from. Inspired, I pulled out some paper and began cutting, scoring, folding and gluing.
Then it came to stamping.
I pulled out the ink that would coordinate with the papers I had chosen. But what image to put as the centerpiece?
I knew I wanted this to be a birthday card. I have several friends who have birthdays soon, so began thinking through what makes each friend unique and which stamp set I have that could best speak to that quality.
Strangely, God kept insisting that I use a set that features a cute, cartoon alligator with a huge grin. Both friends I was considering have wonderful senses of humor, so I thought, “Well, I suppose this could work.” But it still felt like a very juvenile choice. We are all getting older, but we aren’t that old, yet! Well, don’t ask our kids’ opinions…
So I stamped the alligator on a piece of white card stock, colored him in with alcohol markers and cut him out. Then I carefully popped him up on the front of the card with the help of double-sided adhesive, foam hexagons. I stamped some fun birthday sentiments next to him and added a few colored resin dots to spiff everything up.
I was very pleased with how it had turned out. But it still seemed like it wasn’t the correct card for either friend.
While straightening up my crafting desk I ran into something that I had forgotten about. One of the children we sponsor through an international organization had a birthday coming up and I had put the reminder letter on my crafting desk so that I would remember to make a birthday card for her.
Now I knew why God had asked me to make a fun children’s card!
I have noticed over the years that sometimes God is trying to direct me to do something, but I just don’t understand the whole picture at first. Sometimes it is because He knows that if He told me the whole picture, I would freak out or freeze up and be scared to continue, so He just reveals bits at a time.
Other times it is more like this situation where I should have been able to see the whole picture, but had forgotten a piece of it along the way.
I don’t like doing things that don’t make sense to me, so there are plenty of times that I don’t cooperate with God’s nudgings.
But I have experienced the pain of not following His lead enough now that I more and more try my best to do what seems crazy in the moment because I know it just means that I am not seeing the whole picture.