A child’s color palette

I was sitting in Sacrament Meeting this week when the sweet young lady of about seven years of age in front of me got out her magic markers (after the sacrament, of course) and proceeded to create a beautiful picture of her mother and father, her, and her brother. She labored intensely for 20 minutes or so to produce something her mother would love. It said “my family” in German across the top.


Her depiction was not quite accurate. Her mother is a fairly conservative grey/brunette, but her hair was blonde in the picture. She was wearing a nice gray coat, but her dress in the picture was a bright purple. The clothing she drew on the others she portrayed was similar in color and brightness. Also included were a bright yellow sun, vivid blue sky, electric green grass, fluffy white clouds, and an orange heart with the words “I love you” next to it.

I noticed lots of the children after Sacrament meeting. Many of them had chosen bright colors – bright ribbons and purple leggings on one 7-year-old girl, bright shirts, orange socks, and bright-colored jackets and loud ties for the boys. It is my hope that their parents had some influence on the color choices. I would like to think that their color palette is similar to their children’s.

I think that one reason why the Savior wanted to spend time with little children is because of the wonderful colors that are part of their view of the world. He said:

“Suffer the little children to come unto me, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.”

I am sure that the Kingdoms of our Father are full of bright colors and sunshine. I believe that part of the reason He said “…for of such is the kingdom of Heaven” is because of their bright, sunny, innocent, colorful view of life. Everything is new to them. They trust implicitly. They cannot grasp the subtlety of sarcasm, or the possibility that any adult would tell them an untruth. A word of love or a high five is a moment of delight for them.

I hope that we can see the same bright colors in our lives. I don’t think that I am advocating a return to the psychedelic 1970s, but there are wonderful colors all around us. Neither am I advocating implicit trust in the words of others – adults must make mature decisions about veracity and trustworthiness every day. But the colors of our lives are determined by attitude and approach to living as much as any other influence.

It seems to me that sometimes, as we get older, our personal palette is grayed down by earthly cares and mundane tasks. I once had a pair of day-glo orange socks that I thought were too cool for words. Now my socks are grays and blacks. But the fact is that the Creator endowed the earth he placed us on with infinite variations in color and texture both to delight the eye and please the soul. Each of us is unique – each of us has our own personal palette, given to us in the moment of our creation. What we create with the beautiful and unique colors we are given is our choice. Moving the colors from our personal palette to the canvas we choose to create is the work of mortality and eternity. Neal A. Maxwell, in his book, Wherefore, Ye Must Press Forward, tells us:

…admittedly we need to have colors in order to be able to paint, but the discipline involved then requires us to move the various colors from the palette to the canvas.

J. Spencer Kinard, in his book, A Moment’s Pause, said this about our personal palette and our creativity:

The human powers of creativity are incredibly complicated. How is it possible to take twenty-six letters of an alphabet and create a Shakespearean sonnet, twelve musical tones and turn them into Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or a palette of color into Michelangelo's scenes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel?

In the Contributor, vol. 1 (October 1879-September 1880), Vol. I. April, 1880. No. 7, pg 161, we read one of the most beautiful discussions of all the infinite variety of God’s creations:

The Creator, when he placed man upon the earth, gave him all the attributes of godliness … Every nature and variety represented, no two beings exactly alike, yet all, irrespective of color, creed, or character, the sons and daughters of one common Parentage. All endowed with godlike attributes, yet differing like the sands of the seashore, or the heavenly stars, to which their numbers are comparable.

Why this difference? Who is the author of this bewildering variety? Man's Creator, the Maker of heaven and earth and all that in them is. …each human being represents some distinct type of creation, destined to enact in eternity, as well as in time, an important and indispensable part in a great and universal plan; a color diverse from all companion hues, blended on the palette of the divine Artist to properly tint the glorious picture of Eternity; a seed planted on earth, to spring forth from the ground, be nourished and cultivated, and eventually transplanted to bloom and blossom forever in the variegated paradise of God.

So even though we are part of the Master Artist’s palette, “a color diverse from all companion hues” we are endowed with eternal creative powers of our own. We define our life’s work, our art, what we create from the infinite palette of the Creator based on what we have been taught about our purpose here. The growth we experience here gives us infinite artistic virtuosity based on eternal truth. What we begin to paint as we embark on our earthly journey may be very different from what we paint toward the end of the journey. G. K. Chesterton, in his essay, Orthodoxy, offers this thought:

…what we have around us is the mere method and preparation for something that we have to create. This is not a world, but rather the material for a world. God has given us not so much the colours of a picture as the colours of a palette. But he has also given us a subject, a model, a fixed vision. We must be clear about what we want to paint.

Creative clarity comes with maturity. Understanding comes with study and pondering the things of the Lord. Our potential is limitless. To quote J. Spencer Kinard again:

The human mind, body, and spirit are the most wondrous creations of God. But perhaps even more intriguing than what we are is the question of what we may become. No work of all God's creations was endowed with such promise as was man. The Bible records, "God created man in his own image." (Genesis 1:27)

Paint your life according to the guidance you receive from the Master Instructor, the Holy Ghost, the prophets, parents, and church leaders who love you. The result will be unimaginably beautiful.