Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: BLUE (11/09/17)
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TITLE: The Tragedy of Francis Fleming | Previous Challenge Entry
By Katy Foster
11/16/17 -
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“Amazing,” expressed his mother. Francis did delight in the unmatched blue color; however, he sighted a small faint white cloud floating aimlessly.
Strange, thought Francis, “A bit out of place. Perhaps a mistake on the canvas.”
Mother snapped at the rude interruption: “It’s never a mistake!”
“But, doesn’t the perfect Artist do things perfect?” Francis tried to reason.
“Francis, the cloud makes it perfect.” Mother then attempted to readjust her admiration to the portrait.
As hard as Francis tried to see how a cloud in a blue sky made things perfect and unmistaken, he could not get past his truth that a cloud was a disruption, and disruptions equal imperfection. Consequently, Francis concluded that God had made a mistake. This thought traveled daily with Francis, and as God presented a brand-new canvas daily, Francis was pulled to find its “flaws.”
In time, Francis expanded on his self-created catechism, convinced that his own struggles in life simply should not be. Therefore, if God would not take out the “mistakes,” then Francis would blot them out himself. Perhaps God needs my help, pondered the innovator. Francis got to work.
Once confidently ready, Francis arose early, with the morning planned and itinerated. He arose before God’s new portrait was complete. He then traveled a long distance until he could find the bottom side of the canvas that God was painting on for the day. Just as God displayed His completed canvas, Francis spotted a long dark cloud.
Francis had strenuously worked to construct a small one-man aircraft, including wings, propellers, and balloons as a reassurance of flying. Francis then flew next to the canvas and scraped the dark cloud right off God’s painting.
There, Francis beamed, things will be better now.
So, each morning, Francis traveled to God’s canvas, and made changes where he thought they were needed. No more dark clouds. No more gray skies. They were scraped away!
He proudly exclaimed his hard work to his mother; however, he was startled by her reaction.
“Francis, no! God allows it, let Him do His work! How can you see how beautiful the Light is if you will not see its power over darkness? You can’t just fix things on your own!”
Francis angrily resented his mother’s words. She should be thanking ME! Not God! These misguided thoughts stirred and strengthened in his warped mind.
He continued to scrape out part of God’s paintings. Yet, he eventually became uninterested in the blueness of the sky, or from how he changed it. He no longer found it magnificent.
As a matter of fact, there was nothing in Francis’ life that he acknowledged as worthy anymore. He stayed to himself, caring for no one and nothing. In his emptiness, he continued his quest each morning of scraping on God’s painting, as he did in his life.
Francis truly felt that he was owed, brewing bitterness for receiving no reimbursement, and growing tired. Soon, he stopped caring about the portrait that God poured out each morning. Oftentimes, he intentionally kept his head and eyes low, to block his sight from each day’s new portrait. But he couldn’t help himself. He had to look.
One morning, God made a special portrait for Francis. God poured so much blue onto the canvas that no such color could exist anywhere else but by the hand of God. God then, with a careful yet heavy hand, painted two long clouds to make a cross. God told him, “This is for you, Francis.”
Francis stared at the cross for a moment, felt a leap in his heart, and couldn’t swallow. Yet, he chose to focus on the clouds more than on the cross.
“Yes, but we can make this better.” Francis reached up, and callously tried to scrape the clouds. As he reached, his heart turned cold as stone. His life already had. He rejected the gift to immerse in God’s creation.
If only all was well with his soul. All!
The busyness inside a sky-scraper, standing tall and majestic, yet incomparable to our Creator’s work, is immobile and submissive to the revelations and glory of God.
Surrender, and immerse.
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