The Day The Crayons Quit - Drew Daywalt & Oliver Jeffers

This book was given to me by a stranger. No word of a lie. Someone my dad worked with thought this book was so good, she bought loads of copies and kept giving it to anyone she knew who had any vague connection with children. And so my dad was given a copy with the instructions to give it to his grandchildren. I have no idea who she was, but she was not wrong about it. Here's the genius of it all...

The story follows a box of crayons with some work related issues. They form a protest movement to their owner - Duncan - and vow not to work again until their demands are met.

My personal favourite is Peach Crayon - who can't come out of the crayon box anymore as his paper wrapping has been peeled off and he's now effectively naked! He was a hit with my kids too. It seems the simplest ideas are still the best, with each colour having it's own issues with how Duncan has used them - Brown Crayon is particularly disgruntled as to what he has been made to draw. And herein we meet our fundamental human truth - we all have our limits.

While I may, mercifully, still have all my wrapping on each day, there are limits to what I can handle. I cannot, despite my best efforts, do it all. There is an invisible line in the sand, one which often changes without my knowledge, that says "That's it." And when I reach it, I am done. Sometimes it takes me a looooooooooong time to reach this line of overwhelmed chaos. Some days it's happened before I eat my muesli. On these days it often results in me becoming irate over the state of the salad drawer in my fridge and crying in the bread aisle in the supermarket (there are just too many breads quite frankly.)

It's very hard for me to admit I have limits. That I am often overwhelmed by the weight of life's problems (and the value of thick sliced bread over medium sliced.) I cannot handle the things that happen to me and those I love in an average week. Not to mentioned the state of the world out there. I like to think of myself as the fixer of problems not one who has nothing to say when the bad inevitably comes, not just knocking, but makes itself right at home. I like to be independent. Able to cope. Calm in a crisis. But, I am not. I have a limit - and I don't even really know what that limit is.

But there is a great Bible truth that calls back to the tiny, little voice of us small beings - God has no limits.

“Can you fathom the mysteries of God? Can you probe the limits of the Almighty? They are higher than the heavens above—what can you do? They are deeper than the depths below—what can you know? Their measure is longer than the earth and wider than the sea. Job 11v7-9

It is one that we cannot really get our heads around fully. The concept of limitless. Because God is the only being, the only thing, that is truly without limit in every part of who He is. Everything else we know has a limit, the sea, space, all of it limited. But not God. There is nothing He can't do. Nothing He can't handle. Nothing He doesn't know. There is no distance He cannot travel. No depth He cannot reach. He never says "That's it."

Whatver you go through, God has got it covered. And let's not make any bones about it, the world is truly frightening place to release your loved ones into. It can chew them up and spit them out without blinking. And yet God knows this. And He cares about this. And He is able to do something about it. So on the day you or your little crayons can't seem to get out of the box, know that our limitless God goes before us, and our limits let Him do His best work.