If you try to give me a call on my mobile phone, and I don’t answer you are met with the following voicemail message “I’m unable to take your call right now because I’m probably up to my elbows in paint...” This morning that voicemail message couldn’t have been more true.
At 8am this morning I found myself painting flowers, mushrooms and butterflies on the walls of a nursery school in the township of Alexandra. Myself and a handful of other volunteers from my bible study group were making good on a commitment we made to a community project.
Honestly, yesterday I was not looking forward to painting the walls of the school. I didn’t know how I was going to manage it with everything else I had on my plate this weekend. I was pretty grumpy when I got up at 6am this morning and wasn’t convinced that I’d be able to get the job done, get home in time to shower and change, so that I could make a midday work appointment. How silly I was to have let being busy steal the joy away from taking part in making a difference (however small) to a community in need...
By the time 10:30am rolled around the last thing I wanted to do was drive my paint-covered, sweaty, hobo-chic self back home to get dolled up to sell a wealthy Sandtonite a glorified rock for a ridiculous amount of money. The truth is that I had so much fun this morning and had a permanent grin plastered on my face the entire time.
From the minute the first paintbrush came out and the first tin of paint was popped open I had a team of eager young faces huddled around me asking if they too could paint. That team grew by the minute as more and more children heard via the grapevine what was going on and came to offer their services. I became more like a mother hen overseeing the project than the labourer I’d come prepared to be!
It was truly heartwarming to see how much excitement a bit of paint and the outline of a mushroom sketched on a wall can cause. Everyone wanted to paint, nobody wanted to be left out. Each child concentrated on their blade of grass/ butterfly/flower/piece of blank wall with intense attention to detail – much like a team of scientists trying to split a strand of DNA. No task was too menial, no instruction too difficult... I was reminded of why I had decided to become an artist in the first place...
Being creative was fun! Getting covered from head to toe in all the colours of the rainbow was part and parcel of the journey from blank surface to colourful expression, and getting the chance to do something that was purely about beautifying was as good as any exercise-induced endorphin rush.
This morning humbled me. It gave me a much needed reality check and reaffirmed what I’ve been told my entire life – ‘giving is far more fulfilling than receiving’. Sometimes, when you live in a privileged Northern Suburbs bubble you need to be reminded of just how blessed you are, how much the Lord has given you, and as a result, how much He expects from you.
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