A monologue written by J.P. Pressley, directed by Doron JéPaul, and performed by Gerrard James.
You can watch the performance below and on Instagram, and read the original monologue copy at the bottom of this page.
Drawings for God (Original Copy)
My daughter used Crayola’s to draw pictures for God. Her mom and I told her to. Dyslexia made words hard for her, but she wanted some kind of prayer journal, some kind of devotional book, some kind of…something. Something of her own to live on the shelf with my wife’s journals and my ESV study Bible. So, soon as we gifted her a spiralbound sketchbook, she was only too happy to use it.
Day after day, morning after morning, and even at night, Abigail drew pictures. Glorious pictures. I know because she showed me. At least for a time. At first, at five, she’d show me each one, her face beaming even brighter than her suns drawn with the canary crayon, her eyes twinkling even more than those rainbow fish within her midnight blue oceans. Then, out of unforeseen blue, Abigail simply stopped sharing her drawings with me. With my wife.
At seven, she told us the drawings were just for her and God. And I know God must have loved them even more than we did. Why else would He have her graduate early? Why else would God promote Abigail to the heavens the very week she got her first summer job?
(beat)
I…I want to be at peace with it. I need to be. I need to find a way to get there. Because this current normal isn’t sustainable. I struggle not to open Abigail’s sketchbook. To look at the pictures and study each one like a Basquiat. Every day I war with myself, doing everything I can to stay my hand. Actively fighting to be still. To do…nothing.
(beat)
(grows more resolved)
But those pictures…those drawings were, are, between Abigail and God. I must respect that. I will respect that. Willingly. And I’ll continue hoping that one day, be it sooner or later, I can be as close with God as my daughter was. As close with God as my daughter is today.