The cute, little stewardess rolling her bag to the hotel counter couldn’t possibly be my taxi “share-a-ride”.

I had already questioned several ladies (not a wise move before 6 am) if they bore the name the taxi company had given me.

The hotel was emptying quickly after the amazing conference 800+ women had attended.  But, so far, none were the woman I sought.

“Debbie?”, I hesitantly asked the stewardess as she perused the taxis lined up outside.

“Yes!”, she quickly replied. (Obviously relieved that she didn’t have to telepathically figure out who her “share-a-ride” party was).

You would think by now the cliché, “You can’t judge a book by it’s cover” would have warned me not to pre-judge my taxi partner. Unfortunately, that was not the only lesson I learned from her that morning !

Running on little or no sleep from the previous few days, we were able to easily converse on the pent up adrenaline we had stored sitting patiently absorbing “life-changing” information.

We had been encouraged to bring business cards for networking purposes (always a great idea, since I am terrible at remembering names). As I handed her mine, Debbie commented that she had brought colored pencils, attached to her information, a little incentive to remember her by. She was sure she had one left in her bag and would give it to me when we arrived at the airport.

As Debbie and I exchanged stories on our twenty mile ride, we realized we had many life similarities. I fell in love with her desire to empower women and change the world with her experiences.

As I focused on the conversation, I subliminally hoped that the contact information she promised was accompanied by a green, colored pencil. I know that is a lot to hope for, if she only had one left. But, green is my favorite color, and crazier things have happened!

While the taxi driver unloaded our bags from the back, I reminded Debbie of her promise. She rummaged through her bag and finally pulled out a little package. Yes, she did have one left! And the package contained not one colored pencil, but a whole rainbow array!

I watched my new friend walk away and I marveled at her faith. She views the world as her palette, an array of colors at her fingertips in which to pursue life. Some days are brighter than others, there are always a few dark colors sprinkled in, but the potential was unlimited.

I, on the other hand, sat wishing for ONE green pencil. As beautiful  and life-giving as green seems to me, it is still very limited.

Ephesians 3 :20 in the New Living Translation encourages us, “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think”.

Sometimes we think, (we secretly hope), we will be gifted ONE colored pencil to enhance our life with. The reality is we have been given an entire box to create a masterpiece out of our lives.

Let’s stop using one pencil and start coloring our world beautiful!

Love,

Pazazdance