Ivy and Jesus with the Light

I was working on my laptop and Ivy saw a picture. It was an abstract-looking drawing of a long-haired individual meditating.

Ivy said, “It’s Jesus.”

Her and Sage say this if they see pretty much any image of a long-haired individual.

It makes me happy every time.

I chuckled.

Then Ivy said, “Show Jesus with the light.”

I paused like you often have to do when talking with 4-year-olds to figure out what she meant.

Jesus with the light…

Hmm…

Then it came to me what she meant. I pulled up this image and showed it to her:

“Yes! That’s it!” She looked fondly at the picture.

My happiness turned to joy.

This picture has a special place in my heart as it was once an answer to prayer that I’ve remembered ever since.

When I was just returning to church, I attended a fireside one Sunday evening. I dragged Chris along with me. As he and I were walking around the church building halls before the meeting got started, we paused at the above picture, which is present in so many of our church buildings.

We both looked at it.

“Why do they look the same?” Chris asked.

Huh. I’d looked at this picture at least 346,000 times but never really realized or thought about it. They did look the same. I didn’t know the answer.

Chris shrugged and moved on. I was kind of annoyed I didn’t know the answer to a question I felt I should know. Or at the very least something I should have noticed in my 346,001 viewing of the painting.

We went into the fireside.

The speaker was introduced and he stood to speak. He powered on a projector and an image was displayed behind him. 

Drum roll please.

You guessed it.

The image displayed was none other than the painting Chris and I had just been observing in the hall.

The speaker began, “Does anyone know why the figures in this image look so much alike?”

My head jerked to look at Chris next to me. Was he hearing this?!

The speaker went on to explain that the scriptures tell us that Jesus Christ is in the express image of His father. Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father look alike. Makes sense, He is His Son, after all.

I can’t remember why the speaker talked about this. It wasn’t a major point. It was something I think he assumed most of us knew (I didn’t!). He proceeded onto his main point that I can’t remember.

I was shocked.

Chris asked a question. We received an answer.

I considered this a miracle.

I think Chris shrugged and thought, ‘what a coincidence.’

I have joy today because I came back to church. I have joy today because I consider every day what Jesus Christ did for me yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I have joy today because Ivy and Sage say “Jesus!” every time they see an image of a long-haired man.

NoCoincidences.