Stumbling on a Blessing (a.k.a Remy the Really, Really Good Painter)

Blessings are good right? That's a dumb question. Of course blessings are good. Just the word carries positive connotations. I'd even say that most of us are fairly grateful for the blessings we've already received. After some discussion at Sunday school today however, I'm wondering if we can begin to stumble over our blessings. I'm thinking that we can let our blessings alter our attitude, prevent us from participating in open fellowship and prevent us from fully communing with the Lord.

To better illustrate my thoughts (and mostly for my own amusement) I'm going to use a fictional story about "Remy, the Really, Really Good Painter".

Remy lived in a community of painters. Some were admittedly really poor painters, some were average painters and some were pretty good painters. There were a couple that were really good painters. However, God blessed Remy and made him a really, really good painter.

Remy knew that God had blessed him with this gift. He was thankful for it too. People paid more money for his paintings and so he had a nicer house. He got a lot of publicity for his paintings and so everyone knew his name and complimented him on his work. He also had a number of beautiful paintings to decorate his home and to give to people as gifts. Yup, Remy was one blessed dude. However, Remy didn't always know what to do with such a big blessing. He didn't always know it, but sometimes it caused him problems.

 Remy was a genuinely good guy, so he had lots of friends. One day he was painting with his friends. Some of his friends had finger paintings, some had paintings made for calendars, but Remy - his painting was fit for the Louvre. Everyone gathered around it. "Wow, Remy, that's a really, really, good painting! That's incredible!" Remy knew that it was a really, really good painting but like most people in the community Remy valued humility and he didn't want to seem boastful so he contained his smile and just said, "thanks, but it's not a big deal, I don't really care about this one". His friends turned to sheepishly put their only half-decent paintings away.

Remy's friends would often ask him to help them with their paintings. After he helped them perfect a certain brush stroke or get the shadowing just right his friends would say "Remy, thanks very much for helping me. I really appreciate it." Again, Remy didn't want to seem prideful so instead of saying "you're welcome" or "glad I could help" he got into the habit of saying "no worries" or "not a problem". A few of his friends became more hesitant to ask for his help.

One day, Remy and his friends were sitting in the coffee shop discussing painting. His friends were lamenting about how they often had difficulties mixing the colour hyacinth purple. Sometimes they used too much red or other times not enough blue. Remy didn't have any trouble mixing hyacinth. He was having trouble lately mixing lagoon green though. It was becoming troublesome that he couldn't quite get it the way he wanted. He figured he couldn't really complain though - after all he wasn't having the issues with hyacinth that the others were having. So when his buddy asked, "Remy, are you having any problems with your painting?" Remy answered, "I can't complain, I'm very blessed." Soon his friends began to worry that maybe they couldn't relate to Remy anymore or maybe he didn't trust them with his problems anymore.

Remy was excited when he read the tender for the commission of a painting for a The Snazzy Yacht Club. If he was chosen it would bring in enough money to pay off the mortgage on his parents house and have a enough left over for him to build a studio, or maybe a painting school! He put in his application. However, when he knelt to pray before bed that night he decided not to ask God for the blessing of receiving the commission. He felt that would be selfish. God had already blessed him soooo much, especially with his talent for painting. Remy didn't get the commission.

The next day Remy ran into his church pastor at the local Art Gallery. "Hey Remy, how did you ever get that commission for The Snazzy Yacht Club?"
"No I didn't actually," said Remy.
"Oh, that's too bad. I supposed God decided to answer that prayer with a 'no' then eh?" Said the pastor who was a bit odd and had a habit of making awkward statements.
"I didn't talk to God about it," admitted Remy. "I thought it would be selfish to ask God for more blessings on top of the ones he's already given me."
"Hmmm," the pastor paused. "Well Remy, let me ask you this - If you heard a child asking their parent to feed them supper, even though the parent fed them supper the night before, and the night before that - would you think that child was selfish?"
"No, of course not," said Remy.
"Well Remy, remember you are a child of God."
Remy raised his eyebrows and nodded as he considered what the pastor's reminder. "I've never thought of it that way. I never considered that I could let my blessing get in the way with talking to God."

Remy began to consider where else his blessings were causing him to stumble. . .

~***~

So that's Remy the Really, Really Good Painter. Like I said I was thinking about this today as a few of us were discussing how sometimes we don't ask God for something, or we feel bad about asking God for something because we've already received so many blessings. We forget that God wants us to tell Him everything and that he wants to give us good things. Later on I began to think on what other issues could arise from our blessings.

The first and most obvious one I thought of was pride. It begins when we forget that we are nothing without God and start taking the credit for ourselves. However, we all know that arrogance and boasting is bad, so I moved on to thinking about things that might not be so obvious.

If feeling we're overly blessed could keep us from talking to God and keeping fellowship with Him then it could probably keep us from open fellowship with our friends. We don't want to sound like we're ungrateful and complaining so we don't open up to our friends about our day-to-day trials. We forget that there's a difference between complaining to our friends and open discussion and mutual support from our friends - especially when we face the same or similar issues. There can also be more humility in accepting a compliment with a simple thank you or accepting a thank you with a simple "you're welcome" than there is with trivializing it.

It was a new thought to me that even when God gives us a great blessing we run the possibility of stumbling while we strive to be humble and grateful for that same blessing. Just thought I'd share my thoughts. What do you think?

My Mom's Story: Part VI - Raising a Little Girl into a Capable Lady

"A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning unnecessary."

~Dorothy Fisher


I’ve been writing this part in my head for days now. I want to talk about the biggest impact that my mother has had on my life. This is easier said than done. What has she not had an impact on? My mom has been responsible for everything from my table manners to my early 20’s financial success. When I think about it though, there are three things that my mom instilled in me that I am silently grateful for practically every day of my adult life. This was no small task for my mom. Not unlike my mother I was a very determined little girl. I knew better than to be disobedient in actions but this didn’t keep me from asserting to myself that I knew better than my mom in most things. This led me not only to talking back to my mother (which was ALWAYS swiftly punished) but also to develop an under appreciation for how much she loved me and what she was trying to teach me in the hopes of me becoming a productive adult.




To start, my mom has taught me to be a capable, independent “lady”. As a kid I kept many more friends that were boys than girls. Boys didn’t want to rename your dolls or come up with elaborate stories about your Barbies. They wanted to run and play real games. I might have been wearing dresses but it never prevented me from keeping up with the boys. However, I will always remember being in my early twenties, lamenting to my mom about how I didn’t fit in very easily with other young women, that I wasn’t a “girly-girl”. My mom was busy preparing supper as she listened but when she heard this she stopped what she was doing and turned to look at me as though I had said something completely ridiculous.
“Of course you’re not. I never raised you to be a ‘girly-girl’,” was her remark. It’s true, my mom raised me to be a capable lady. Being a lady meant having excellent manners, being a good hostess and being proud of traditional women’s roles. However, this is not where being a lady ends. To be a capable, independent lady means to be well-versed in all that life may ask of you. I watched and helped my mom as she wielded power tools, installed fixtures, cut-down tree branches, put up tents and started fires among numerous other activities that some women would prefer to leave to men. Both my parents believed in not limiting my education to gender roles. My mom taught me that as a woman you don’t leave a task undone because you’d prefer a man to do it. You do what you know how to do. If you don’t know how, you learn. If you’re not sure where to start, you ask. Then you try your best and if you need help, ask for it and allow yourself to be taught. Never let yourself be limited by your size or gender. This has been asset to me not only in my home as a single woman but also on my solo international travels, and most certainly in my career in what used to be a very male-oriented industry. I might wear a uniform and lift double my weight on a regular basis but I can also walk in high heels and sew and knit. I thank my mom for showing me a life where I am not the sum of my gender, that I don’t need to be afraid to learn and try new things and that I’m a well-rounded, capable lady and not a “girly-girl”.

Secondly, my mom raised me as a Christian. I would never, ever underestimate the impact this has had on my life. My mom prefers not to attend church. I think it is in bad taste to discuss someone else’s beliefs on their behalf. I only state this to show that raising me as a Christian was a choice. I’ve heard many parents state that they choose not to raise their children within organized religion because they think their child should have that choice when they’re older. I would take a different approach, but let me further illustrate my God-centered home life. One of my earliest memories is sitting in a church pew playing with the string on my white church hat, I would have been two, maybe three years old and it was the same church that my parents had me Christened in when I was three-months old. From the time I could talk I was taught to pray on my knees before bed and this usually entailed asking God to bless everyone I knew by name and their dog, quite literally. When I was living with my Grandma one of our favourite things to do was sing Bible songs together. We always said Grace before family supper, right until we moved out of the house. It was my mom who took me to church every Sunday. It was at church that I felt safe with my peers in contrast to the bullying I experienced at school. It was at church that I started my life-long-love of choir singing and it’s where I learned public speaking as I was encouraged to read scripture out loud to the congregation from the age of eight. It was my mom’s dedication to making sure I had these opportunities that led to me knowing in my heart, mind and soul that I am a child of God, that I belong to Him. When I was 12 I chose to kneel before the congregation and received the laying of hands that made me a confirmed member of The Church. This was something I chose. I wasn’t brainwashed and I wasn’t sheltered.
I would say that no child will ever regret being taught to purposefully think about the lives and hardships of others, that they won’t suffer from learning to be grateful for the food in front of them and if they do come to know God they’ll always know of the joy and comfort that comes from a life spent with Him. My mom is not some stereotypical, caricature uptight, Bible thumping, Sunday Christian. She’s the most open-minded, non-judgemental and giving person I know, and that, combined with her decision to raise me in the Church has given me to a very enriched spiritual life. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Finally, my mom taught me how to fit into life. This probably sounds funny and I honestly don’t have a better way of explaining it. I would start by saying that we live in a culture that rewards extroversion and undervalues introversion. By definition of these somewhat limiting terms I have always been a hardcore introvert. If left to my own devices as a child I probably would have spent the majority of time alone reading books. Unfortunately, introverts have a harder time at life I think. They’re often mistaken for being reclusive, sullen and lacking communication skills. They’re considered not as much “fun” to be around, uptight or boring. Our society has a tendency to pass them over in favour of energy exuding extroverts. My mom (who also considers herself an introvert) was not going to let that happen to me. She taught me both through discussion and example that there is nothing wrong with being more inclined to introversion. This meant that I was reflective, analytical, empathetic, a good listener and excellent at thinking outside of the box among other good qualities. However, if I could work at developing more extroverted qualities and combine them with my innate ones I would open up so many more opportunities in my future. Over the years of choir, soccer, dance, cheerleading, piano, Girl Guides and numerous school groups I learned that being part of a team wasn’t so bad, that the satisfaction of performing for people was pretty fun and that if I thought carefully about what I wanted to say, there were people who actually wanted to listen. Back at home I learned from my mom invaluable pieces of social life like how to carry a conversation and that even if I think small talk is often ridiculous, it serves a purpose in making some people feel more at ease. My mom was forever reminding me to smile more - even if it doesn’t always feel natural. These skills require upkeep. I still have to be reminded to smile more, I still have to remind myself to initiate conversation. Sometimes it takes a lot of effort to bring out my bubbly, charming side. It was Mom who coached me on the value of being able to flip the switch between introvert and extrovert. In essence, over the years my mom has made me an ambivert like herself and it has paid off immensely for me. My first serious job was as a newspaper reporter and then an editor. I was only 19-20 years old and I was calling up MPs and having lunch with MLAs. I was driving out and meeting people to hear their life stories. I had an opinion column that people actually read and I dealt professionally with people who didn’t like what I had to say. I talked with businessmen, teachers, police, teenagers, oil companies, politicians, virtually every facet of society and there is no way I ever would have been successful at that career if not for the more extroverted skills that my mom encouraged me to develop. Now I work on the ambulance which also allows me utilize all of my traits and skills. I’m glad that what probably seemed like my mom nagging or criticizing me at the time turned out to be one of the biggest assets my mom has given me. She’s made my adult life a whole lot easier and allowed me to envision far more opportunities than the little girl locked away in her room reading would have seen.

That is the impact my mother has had on my life. Long post, I know! There’s only one final entry left to write in this little series. If my mom’s story reminds you of your own story or of your mother’s story, if you’ve found it relatable, inspiring, comforting or just a little bit interesting I would ask you to do two things. The first is to comment. The second thing I would ask is for you to look for and read the final post in this series that will be coming soon!




To be continued. . .