Dancing in the Honeycomb

When I was six or seven, I remember noticing that no other girl my age would answer “yellow” to the question, “what is your favorite color?” This surprised me. Of course, to my five-year-old mind, it was perfectly fine that some loved pink. And although some of the girls wanted to be labeled tomboys and said “blue,” an autumn sky proved that the azure family was a great choice as well.

But no one, but me, said “yellow.” Did I know a secret they did not?

Thankfully, my mother nurtured my love of this color. She found yellow doll dresses at summer craft sales. She made sure my beanie doll was yellow (and not pink like my friends’). Now, my mom has a keen eye for color and was especially interested in the subtle nuances that made a color a cool tone or warm tone. She guided me towards the warm tones of yellow (to match my skin tone and enhance my eye color a presume) and we often landed on a buttery, golden hue.

But the most amazing way my mother nurtured my love for yellow happened one sunny afternoon. I had just come home on the bus from school. It was 4:10 P.M. my mom wasn’t in the kitchen, like she usually was when I got home. But I could hear her upstairs. Was she in my bedroom? I skipped up the steep stairway and opened my white, paint chipped door to see my mom and her neighbor friend on ladders, painting my bedroom yellow.

The golden, honey-butter yellow I loved!

Have you even been given a wonderful gift that answered your deepest desires, but you didn’t even know they were your deepest desires? That is how I felt when I opened my bedroom door that day.

My bedroom, on the second story of the house, had double windows facing south. Yes, they were so old I had thick frost on the inside, in the winter, and an army of flies in the summer. But they were my windows, and in every season they invited liquid sunshine to cascade into my personal space.

After my room was painted yellow it became a honeycomb haven. It was bright and fresh in the mornings, warm and dreamy at noon and smiling with a hug in the evenings. I was held in the light. After playing with my dolls and stuffed animals, my primary objective was to clear the middle of the floor to make space for the main event – a four-quadrant-patch of sunlight. It shone on my worn-down beige carpet. And the only way I could express my joy over the warm amber glow was to twirl in my own pot of gold.

So I twirled. Yellow and sunshine were all the music I needed.

I twirled in the honeycomb room that the goodness of my mother had provided. Her thoughtfulness transformed my space. Her delight in my delight had given me the desires of my heart. She knew me and knew what I loved even better than I knew myself.

God’s goodness, to me, is honey-gold. Imagine dwelling inside the honeycomb of his goodness. Would we clear the space so we could see it shine? Would we twirl in the color of his goodness?

His thoughtfulness and delight in our delight wants to transform the space where our soul dwells.

In what ways has God surprised you by painting yellow?