As you
know I have been teaching the book Practicing the Presence of God by
Brother Lawrence. Our class came to the
third letter that was written to Soldier.
Brother Lawrence told the Soldier to carry out his duty as a guard with
God. He told him that no one else would
notice and that the mundane duty of marching back and forth between the gate he
guarded was the perfect way to keep his mind on being in God’s presence.
I wanted
to ask my class to find a task to do with God so I decided to purposefully
practice God’s presence during a mundane task.
It was early in the morning, and I really wanted to paint my toenails. It had been a while since they had been
painted because of my foot surgery. I invited
God to be with me as I painted my nails, a task I had never done before while
conscious of God’s presence. I was ready for a different color, and I saw
my toenails in desperate need of attention.
I went outside on the patio to carry out my task so my nails would dry
faster. It was dawn and not full
light. While painting my nails, I
realized that something was awry. I saw
that the color was off and assumed I had chosen the pink rather than the
coral. Oh well, God, I thought, I guess pink is better than coral, assuming He
had decided on a different color than I had in mind and I liked pink also. My natural tendency was to assume that
since I had invited God into this process, He must have decided to make Himself
known through changing the color. But as
the light became brighter I saw that I had picked up red not pink—that was the
color I did not want for sure.
Red
represented all the pain I had been through, everything I was trying to leave
behind. I wondered, God why didn’t you alert me to the fact that I had chosen the wrong
color, as I painted my toenails with you?
I wasn’t mad or bratty in this question.
After all, it was just toenail polish.
I didn’t let my mind stay there.
Rather I was so determined to have coral toenails that I decided to just
use the red as the basecoat and paint coral right over. It was outside of my prior belief system
about painting toenails (you need to use the same colors), but I did it anyway
because I was so tired of red and ready for something new. Problem solved, I
went on about my day.
It was
later when I taught the class and used my experience as an example of
practicing the presence with God that I better understood and appreciated the
answer to the question I had asked but was not ready for an answer.
God never promises that just because we focus
on Him during a mundane task, like painting toenails, that everything will turn
out perfect! In fact, my toenail
painting was definitely imperfect with smudges here and there. It is not a perfect where everything turns
out better than you expect. Rather it is
the experience of peace when even things you don’t expect to happen disappoint
and leave you without what you wanted that you still have God’s presence. I even considered Him smiling while I sat
there in the half dark so proud of myself for being so wise to teach my class
how to paint their toenails with God and get a more exquisite result. Knowing my thoughts, I could see Him waiting
patiently for the moment when I would realize that I had sat there and painted
my own toenails red even while doing it for the love of God, of all things. I think He was proud when I didn’t lash out
at Him or blame Him for not to alerting me about my folly, as if that was His
job to make everything in my life turn out the way I expect.
I actually love to look down at my
coral toenails with tiny streaks of red peeking out. They remind me of the truth Paul wrote in
Romans 8:28: And we know
that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been
called according to his purpose.
A lesson God can each even from painting toenails.
Copyright © 2017. Deborah R. Newman teatimeforyoursoul.com All Rights Reserved.
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