Hello God, it's me, Mara

You know, Lord, long ago there was a story told of an old Italian artist who had lost some of his skill. One evening he sat discouraged before a painting he had just completed. He noticed that he had lost some of his touch. The canvas did not burst with life as it once did, and he went sadly to bed.

Later on, his son, also an artist, came to examine his father’s work; he, too, noticed the lack of life in his father’s painting. Taking the palette, he worked far into the night, adding a little touch here, a smudge there, a little color here, a shadow there. He worked until the picture fulfilled...