The choices we make

My granddaughter, Eve, watched me work on this painting.

“Where is the alpaca,” she asked.

I had decided to “delete” Coco, one of our alpacas, which was in the photograph I used as an inspiration for my most recent painting, “Spring in Summer.”

As I was explaining to Eve that an artist could choose what to include and what to omit from a work, it occurred to me that it’s a bit like forgiveness. Coco was in the “wrong” place and the composition would have suffered from her inclusion. We have choices to make in life. We can leave things out of the picture. I’ll always know Coco was there, I may remember wrongs committed, but I can eave them out of the picture altogether.

I wondered if it’s (whole, complete, harmonious) what our forgiven lives look like to God, the true artist.