A Painted Love

I’ve been staring at a sunset sky
All the wonder just fills my eyes

Milly was sitting in her studio in the wee hours of the early morning in the Scottish hillside. Slow, steady, easy strokes on the canvas. Pigment upon pigment as she washed the once pure canvas alive with swirls and spirals. Milly looked out the window facing the sunrise, drawing the page from her eyes to her mid back onto the canvas. The work of the Father always inspired her to try and copy it onto the paper cloth.

Everything inside of me is bursting out
I believe the same one who paints the clouds

She breathed softly, not wishing to disturb her sleeping younger brother behind her. She stopped painting for a moment to look back at his stuffy, dirty, peaceful face. He had insisted he would help his big sister paint her pictures to sell, but he always slept instead. They were orphans and Milly, as the older sister, painted for a living. She sighed. She softly prayed to the Father that her gifts would lightened the burden, but still felt like it was enough.

Is the one who turned my life around
You’ve given me a melody, a song to sing

But it wasn’t always this way for them, inside a small cabin with most of what they needed just to get by. Milly and Travis, her little brother, used to live in the street of the small Scottish town not far from their cabin home. For 3 years, they had to feed themselves with the food on the ground and scraps leftover in taverns. It was one day when Milly went inside the church with some coal and paper and began to draw on the floor that the priest found her. Milly believed that the Father had led her there and now here she was, painting for her livelihood.

You’re not looking at where I’ve been
You’re not looking at what I’ve done

Milly still remembered what she had been before that miraculous afternoon. She and Travis had been afraid that the Father would reject them because of what had happened to them. But the priest told them that if you were truly sorry and came to Him broken and ready for Him, He would never turn away.

You’re taking me as I am
It’s a beautiful love, beautiful love

Travis had been crying, he was too young to understand at the time, but Milly felt tears fill her hazel orbs. She had thanked the priest and he led them through a prayer to which they become members of the church. Milly felt so free, oddly enough, that afterwards she went to the local square, sat by the fountain and began to paint on the cobblestone streets.

All You give, I’m gonna give it to all I see
‘Cause what I’m seeing is You in me
It’s a beautiful love, beautiful love

Milly learned that the Father had given the ability to paint for a reason and she didn’t waste time. Travis asked her what he could do and she told him to ask the herbalist to give him some pigments. Travis returned in about 30 minutes with a bag and the herbalist following. The following events seemed to blur together to her now. The sun stuck her eyes now. She moved her stool and took up her brush again. “What a beautiful scene.” Travis stirred in his sleep and Milly smiled at her finished painting, a sunrise with two children staring into the large Scottish sky.

Advertisement