Last month I published a post called Drawing. It was about a short course I did to learn how to draw flowers. It was a little bit like a match thrown down in a dry patch of grass. It has not started a wild runaway fire – nothing quite that dramatic, but it has kindle a small fire – one to sit by and warm ones’ hands on a nippy night.

I had had a morning that had left me heavy-hearted, and I sighed as I began to drive home. Then I heard a whisper.

“Play a little.”

Huh, that would be nice, I told my imagination – the part that inspires wishful thinking. Life is too serious to play at the moment.

“Play a little.”

It came again. The whisper. And this time I sat up and took notice.

“You are taking life too seriously. It is not your responsibility, it is Mine. My Child, play.”

With a spark of joy, I changed direction. I knew where I would go. It was a shop – but don’t get me wrong. I am not one to spend hours in shops, although I do enjoy the odd shopping spree now and again with a friend or with a particular purpose in mind. This was a special shop. One I tried to avoid for the tempting display of goods on its shelves.

It was an art supply shop.

As I closed my car door and turned toward the shopping centre, I noticed a spring in my step. A spring that had not been there twenty minutes before.

I entered the fascinating place and sighed again. But this time my sigh was one of pleasure and I lost myself for over an hour browsing, feeling paper, trying pens, admiring paint colours, canvases and journals. Now these may not appeal to you like they do to me, but perhaps there is another place that will do the same for you – where they sell harnesses or plants or bricks. Stay with me, for the miracle, the gift had not yet happened.

I had been ‘sort of’ looking for a specific product, but had been unable to find it. I had spent some time with a friend who had shown me her water-soluble pastels earlier in the week, and I would have loved to have some to experiment with them. The shop did not have any on the shelves. Another sigh, this time in resignation, yet as I turned to go I heard the voice again.

“Ask.”

So I did. And the assistant stopped to think. “Come with me,” she invited.

And we wound through the maze of shelves and under a sign on a door lintel that said ‘Staff Only’. There were two ladies in the office sitting at a table in the middle of the room. And on the table was a box, a shining box, of water-soluble pastels. I picked it up. Was this why I was here?

“We only have the one – it’s just come in,” one of the office ladies said. “I haven’t put the price on it yet but here it is, already printed.”

I was rather shocked at the price. “There’s 40% off this month,” the sales assistant said.

I hesitated – it was still expensive. But then:

“Play a little,” the whisper came again.

“I’ll take them!” I said in a rush to smiles all round.

I paid and brought my treasure home. But the week turned out to be a busy one and it was only yesterday that I was able to indulge and play a little. And what fun I had. No, they’re not Picasso’s or anything like my friend’s talented paintings. But they are mine, and I think they are a gift from God.

Who knows what plans He has for them in my hands? I’ll have to practice, but they are in my hand which is in the hand of the Master Artist and anything is possible.

Thank you, Jesus. Playing is fun. Now, where did I put that paint brush?