Wow! Full-grown winter certainly made her presence known this year. I live at the bottom of a steep driveway, and my car was iced in for over two weeks! In addition, Well of Mercy had to close for those weeks because Mercy Lane was also covered in a thick sheet of ice. While disappointed that we could not welcome guests, I confess that I used this time at home for some wonderful wintering and creativity!

Paint By Numbers

Included in those endeavors was a paint by numbers canvas of the most beautiful cat in all the world….aka Lola Slaton. As I matched my numbers and my colors, I relaxed. My mind cleared, and time flew by. While the little dollops of color did not look like much as I painted them in, when I stepped back, a picture began to emerge. That’s when I had an epiphany. Prayer and paint by numbers have some similarities.

When you’re in the middle of a paint by numbers, all you can see is the small space in front of you. A patch of blue here, a sliver of yellow there. It can feel tedious – maybe pointless. The colors don’t seem to make sense, and how in the world will those tiny blobs of paint ever be anything whole or beautiful?

When Prayer Feels Small & Ordinary

Prayer is often the same. In the moment, it feels small and ordinary—showing up, saying the words, sitting in silence, trusting that it matters. We pray into little spaces: a worry, a hope, a grief, a single day. We don’t always see how it all fits together.

Step Back and Look at the Big Picture

But prayer, like paint by numbers, is coloring in the big picture. Each quiet moment, each deep breath, each sacred act of trust takes its place in something larger.. And it’s only when we step back—sometimes much later—that the image begins to emerge. What once looked like random strokes reveals depth and meaning. We see how the colors relate, how the picture holds together, how beauty was forming even when we couldn’t recognize it.

Prayer doesn’t always change what’s right in front of us. But over time, it fills in the picture. And sometimes the truest understanding comes not while we’re painting, but when we finally step away and see what has been quietly created all along.
Schedule your next visit to Well, and fill in more colors in your life. Hope to see you soon.

Lea Slaton
Executive Director