The Color of Jesus

By Jill Marshall-Work

She was given a picture of Jesus to color
        in her Sunday School classroom that day.
If she would have asked me the color of His face,
        I wouldn't have known what to say.
Warm brown like her brother's? Or peach like her parents' ?
        Or tan like her own golden hue?
But she didn't ask me the color of His face--
         she colored it blue.

Would his hair be in black flecked with gray like her Daddy's?
          Or would it be copper like mine?
Or silver like Grandma's? Or maize like her cousins,
           with a layer of gold for some shine?
Or gray like her Grandad? Or dark like her own,
           a cascade of silky black ink?
But she didn't ask me the color of His hair--
           she colored it pink.

One ear was turquoise, the other was green.
His beard was the purplest purple that I've ever seen.
She made His lips yellow, His neck was in brown.
Then she looked at His eyes and she stopped with a frown.

Had she noticed His eyes were as round as a marble,
         with her Daddy's and mine the same way?
The eyes in her picture were not like the eyes
         that she saw in the mirror each day.
But you'd think that by now I would realize
          how the world would be seen
          through my daughter's sweet, 4-year-old, almond-shaped eyes.
For her whole box of crayons was used to portray
          the rainbow of love that she found in the eyes of her Jesus
          in the picture she colored that day.

She was given a picture of Jesus to color
        in her Sunday School class, but you see--
The Sunday School lesson in love that was learned
         was taught by my four-year-old daughter to me.

Copyright words and music 2001 Jill Marshall-Work