Crayons are a tool that we use to make things beautiful, to add color, and to me, color is happy! Heavenly Father uses us as tools to add "color" and make things beautiful and interesting and happy. Sometimes, we're going along, doing what we think is our job, coloring our little part of the world, following that plan we've made for ourselves, when we might feel ourselves break. I was thinking of this as a point at which we feel like giving up, or do give up for a time, or a serious change in plans. I've had a couple of these in my life, as I'm sure most people do.
So then, as I'm sitting there trying to color my picture with a broken crayon, I was thinking how annoying it was, but then in the same thought i thought of a couple of really fun, quite beautiful projects that I've done in school over the years using broken crayons. And the thing is, you can't make broken crayon projects WITHOUT broken crayons. And, I like crayon pictures fine, and I like the different colors, and I actually really LIKE brand-new, full-length crayons! But, some of the broken-crayon projects I was thinking of are WAY more beautiful to me than a stupid coloring book picture colored with brand new crayons.
We may feel that Heavenly Father is pushing us too hard, and we may feel like broken crayons, and we may have been annoyed that the crayon broke, but as I look back on my experiences, I see beautiful things that Heavenly Father had done with my share of broken crayons. I have learned things more quickly than I would have if life had worked out the way I had planned, and I've accomplished things that I'm not sure I would have accomplished any other way. I am grateful, no, CRAZY grateful, for the broken crayon points in my life. It was because of those broken crayon points that my life is as beautiful and unique and as happy as it is! Like I said, coloring book pictures colored with brand new crayons is fine, and looks nice, and is a version of beauty, but I like some of the broken crayon projects SO much more! In fact, I like ALL of them more!
So the thing that I had reiterated to me through all of this was just that Heavenly Father knows what He's doing. He's an AMAZING life-artist, and I may think the "broken" parts are a bit annoying, but it's a good thing I have them because Heavenly Father is making something even MORE beautiful with the broken bits.
Here's some beautiful broken crayon art:
