I Ain't Gonna Paint No More...by Lucy

I Ain't Gonna Paint No More is the title of a children's book that I love. It is about a child who paints almost his whole body until there isn't any paint left, so he "ain't gonna paint no more."
Sometimes during the last 3 weeks I have wanted to shout those words. We have run out of paint numerous times, with Aaron's room requiring 4 coats of paint! Hopefully today we will finish painting the rooms of the apartment. We have just little things to do, like the blue stripes you see above in Aaron's room. We still need to paint the window and door frames, and the outside. We are pretty happy with how the colors have turned out, even though Aaron's yellow room is VERY yellow.

The process of getting to this point has felt time consuming and tiring at times. We have been in "temporary" living quarters for almost 4 months now. We are a close family and we still like each other, but we are so ready to move into the apartment! But everything we have done to get the apartment ready to move in was necessary, not always fun, but definitely necessary.
Soon after moving here, we poured the roof/ceiling. Then we poured the floor. Next Jerry and Troy came to help create walls. It began to look more and more like a real home. We put drywall on the steel wall studs. Mark mudded and taped the walls, and mudded and taped the walls some more! Cirino and others built us steps up to our front door. Mark's parents came and helped us sand the walls and put primer on them. Now the walls are painted and pretty, and it looks even more like a real home. There is nothing like freshly painted walls to make us smile right now. I am getting so excited about moving in! But there is still work to do. Mark hopes to purchase tile today for the floor. There are still many things to do to be prepared to move in.

Watching our apartment here develop into our home reminds me of how we should constantly be preparing ourselves as Christ's home. First we hear the Good News of Jesus Christ. Then we accept Him into our hearts as Lord and Savior. He makes His home with us. But we must not stop there. It's like an unfinished house, instead of a home otherwise. We have to read His Word, study it, learn from it, build a relationship with Him, and above all, act on what we have learned from Him. If we do these things, we become more like Christ, and people will see Him through the windows of our hearts, because He is living in us.

One of the things we are planning to do before the tile is put down, is have everyone here at Refuge Ranch write a scripture on the concrete floor (an idea we borrowed from our home church when they were building). Our home will be built on God's Word (literally)! Just like our lives should be, so "they will know we are Christians by our love."

"Don't you know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit lives in you?"
1 Corinthians 3:16

"By this, all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35
I chose to finish with this picture of Joanna's room. She chose to use her room for an art class for some of the older girls (Diana, Angie, Joanna, and Erika in the picture), and teach them how to splatter paint. At first, they were timid about flinging paint on the wall, but then we began to hear laughter coming from her room as the painting got wild. Her room is beautiful, and reflects Joanna's love of color.

It reflects God's creativity for me. Imagine how He must have felt when He was creating the Earth, and everything in it (Can you imagine creating a butterfly, or a hippopotamus, or a platypus?). He is a creator, and that is one way that we, as His creation, are truly like Him. He must have laughed so loud when He said, "It is good. It is very very good!" (Genesis 1:31 says God saw all that He had made, and it was very good.). Today remember to be creative, and let His love shine through you!