This post is especially for those of you feeling intimidated by those big, empty drawing boxes on every single left-hand page of the journal.

My drawing skills are less than basic. In a writing workshop I was once asked to make a list of “Why I Write.”

I immediately started with:      1. Because I can’t draw.

An admission of my artistic lack isn’t what I envisioned leading off with here on the website. But wouldn’t you know, that’s exactly where God met me as I was journaling through Chapter 1.

I had already written (on the right-hand side of the page) about how these verses in Numbers make me think of God’s smile on us.

I remember meeting someone in Seattle a few years ago when I attended a one-day conference. We struck up a brief conversation in the hall afterwards, and he asked if he could pray for me.

What followed probably would have been awkward in any setting other than this “God moment.” The tall, kind gentleman cupped my face in his elderly hands and recited these verses in blessing

     “The LORD bless you and keep you;

     The LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

     The LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

That’s what it feels like for God’s face to be turned toward me: He holds my face in His hands. He sees me. And His face is beaming.

The journal entry was all well and good. But I still had a drawing box to fill in. I was on Day 2 of my own journal and already stuck.

I drew a circle in the top corner with some angled “rays” extending across the box. My next thought was, “Oh good grief, I didn’t even do that right. His countenance is ‘lifted up’—up like a smile, up like a sunrise. I drew the sun at high noon already.”

I made a mental note to find a pretty sunrise photo later and paste it over my chicken scratch.

The next morning, I happened to be on the interstate early, headed north. The sky was brightening on my right. I love sunrises: The colors. The gradient. The clouds.

And on this day, the sun peered over the horizon of horse farms in broad shafts of light. Just like the ones I tried to draw yesterday.

The King of Heaven saw my picture.

He noticed my primitive attempt to capture the smile of His countenance in the rays of a sunrise. And before I forgot about it, He painted the sky that way this morning. Just for me. To tell me that, yes, just like that, He wants to shine His face on me.

The sun was rising for whole east coast of the US at that moment. Yet He made arrangements for the place my car would be this morning, the precise atmospheric conditions in this specific segment of Florida to create shafts of light. And He made sure I turned my head at just the right time so I didn’t miss His display.

He saw my picture. He didn’t shame me for it. He picked up the theme and ran with it.

He smiled at me.

This is my King.