The colour of Jesus . . .

By Jill Marshall-Work

She was given a picture of Jesus to colour
in her Sunday School classroom that day.
If she would have asked me the colour 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 colour of His face--
she coloured 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 coloured 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 coloured that day.

She was given a picture of Jesus to colour
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.