Blank Canvas

It’s a new year! I know, I know…hello Captain Obvious.

I'm probably like some of you and not too fond of resolutions. As the old saying goes, “Resolutions are made to be broken.” On the same hand, I totally get the feeling of wanting to make a change and the drive behind it. Which, if we’re honest, fades almost as fast as it appeared.

I’m going to get straight to the point of this…yes, it’s a new year, and the perfect time to make that change, tackle that project, crush that goal, or whatever else you want or need to do. With that in mind, I want to ask you a question?

What is your VISION for this year?

What do you see? Come January 1, 2023? January 1, 2024? 2030? 2040? One of the definitions of the word Vision is “the ability to think about or plan the future with imagination or wisdom.”

You may be sitting here thinking something like this…


- I barely survived 2020…and 2021 just said “hold my beer”…
- I can’t even wrap my brain around life RIGHT NOW!
- My past won’t allow me to have a future…

Whatever picture your life has painted thus far, I want to remind you of something…you’ve just been handed a blank canvas. I’ve got a friend of mine named Uriah. A few years back he began experimenting with painting. I’ve watched as he has grown as an artist. I even have one of his pieces. To say that the man is talented is a drastic understatement.

There are a few things I see when I look at his journey…

1. He sees something in his head even before he looks at the canvas…while we only see the finished product.
2. He sees something that he can’t explain.
3. His vision for the finished product points him in the right direction.
4. He allows room for the process to help create the final masterpiece.
5. He sometimes even uses canvases that already have elements on them.
6. His studio is covered in excess paint from previous projects.
7. His clothing is stained from the colors previously used.
8. He himself, as the canvas becomes the masterpiece, finds himself splattered with paint.

The canvas of our life is very similar...

- We dream, we hope, we plan
- We doubt
- We fear
- We struggle articulating
- We face opposition
- We get blindsided
- We carry old stains
- We pay attention to the chaos
- We don’t heal from the past
- We neglect help
- We feel we don’t deserve it
- And our vision blurs, while the canvas still gets painted…and that finished product looks nothing like our vision…

Why? Because we fail to realize that even those moments of inevitable friction can create beautiful brushstrokes when the brush is in our hands…but we place it in the hands of each and every obstacle that comes our way, allowing those hands to paint a picture of our life that is not our vision…

Do you have a vision? Even if it’s blurry as can be… Do you see what you want the canvas of your life to look like? If not, I want you to dare to dream. If so, I want you to paint your heart out. And wherever you are, whether your vision is clouded by the chaos or you are seeing clearly, or anywhere in between…the masterpiece of your life starts with one simple step.

A step that you have permission to believe you can take…
A step that takes even the chaotic and puts their brushstrokes in their rightful place…
A step that takes power away from your mistakes and gives it back to you…

No, this step is not to go out and grab control, cause we can’t control many of the aspects of our lives, even though we wear ourselves out trying…but we can control how we prepare, respond, and react…

So “What’s that step” you may ask…

Just pick up the brush.

-Trey McGuire