Finished in His Time

Pull up a chair, friend, and sit with me a while. There's a story I've been holding close all weekend, and it's the kind best told slowly.

On Friday, Carrie and I met for lunch, and afterwards we wandered back to my studio, not to achieve anything, simply to breathe. The paint pots were waiting on the old splattered tablecloth, the brushes lay in their tray, and the little "Love one another" heart watched quietly from the wall as we settled in. Somewhere between the first brushstroke and the last, two paintings that had been waiting a very long time were finally finished.

🕯️ We started those canvases sometime in 2022. I'd love to tell you we painted them in one joyful afternoon, but the truth is far more tender. Over the years, whenever Carrie hit a wall of overwhelm, I'd send a simple invitation: Come and paint with me for a few hours. Out would come the two canvases from my studio cupboard, we'd add a few layers of colour, a few layers of conversation, and then back into the cupboard they'd go. In and out, season after season, those paintings became a kind of quiet record of friendship, every brushstroke laid down on a day when one heart needed another.

This time, the invitation flowed the other way.

✍️ Two weeks ago, I was the one who hit major overwhelm. Life had been full, the convention was looming, and my soul felt like a cup filled right to the brim, one more drop and it would spill. So Carrie and I set a date for after the convention, a gentle landing place to wind down. I didn't realise how much I needed it until I sat down, picked up a brush, and felt my shoulders finally drop.

🕊️ There's something holy about creating alongside someone without needing to fill the silence. Colour moving across canvas has a way of loosening what words can't reach. As we painted, I sensed Holy Spirit hovering near, like a feather drifting down to rest on the table between us, reminding me that rest isn't something I earn at the end of a long list. It's something He freely offers in the middle of it.

📖 "Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." — Matthew 11:28 (NKJV)

🪨 What moved me most was this: those paintings were never abandoned. They were simply waiting. Not one layer of paint added in a hard season was wasted; each became part of the final picture. I think of kintsugi, the Japanese art of mending broken pottery with gold, where the cracks aren't hidden but honoured. Our canvases carry something similar. Beneath the finished colours lie the overwhelmed afternoons, the tears that came out sideways, the laughter that surprised us, and the faithful returning. The gold is in the layers.

Isn't that how the Lord works with us? So many of us carry unfinished canvases in the cupboards of our hearts: dreams set aside, healing that feels half-done, prayers we've stopped saying aloud. We bring them out on our hardest days, add a little colour, and tuck them away again, wondering whether they'll ever be complete. Yet He who began the work hasn't forgotten a single brushstroke. He isn't rushing us, and He isn't discouraged by the years. He's the patient Artist who knows exactly what the finished piece will look like.

🌱 On Friday, after five years of in-and-out, we stepped back and looked at two completed paintings. I felt such a deep sense of peace, as though the Lord was whispering, See? I finish what I start, and that includes you.

Like water that keeps finding its way around every stone, His faithfulness flows on, unhurried and unstoppable. Friendship became one of the ways He carried us both: Carrie on her overwhelmed days, and me on mine. Sometimes we hold the brush, and sometimes we're the canvas, and through it all, He is the One making something beautiful.