Colton had still never seen one he thought was right.
Well, I thought, may as well see what he thinks of Akiane’s attempt.
I got up from the desk and hollered up the stairs for Colton to come down
to the basement.
“Coming!” came the reply.
Colton bounded down the stairs and popped into the office. “Yeah,
Dad?”
“Take a look at this,” I said, nodding toward the computer monitor.
“What’s wrong with this one?”
He turned to the screen and for a long moment said nothing.
“Colton?”
But he just stood there, studying. I couldn’t read his expression.
“What’s wrong with this one, Colton?” I said again.
Utter silence.
I nudged him in the arm. “Colton?”
My seven-year-old turned to look at me and said, “Dad, that one’s right.”Knowing how many pictures Colton had rejected, Sonja and I finally felt that
in Akiane’s portrait, we’d seen the face of Jesus. Or at least a startling
likeness.
We were pretty sure no painting could ever capture the majesty of the
person of the risen Christ. But after three years of examining Jesus
pictures, we did know that Akiane’s rendering was not only a departure
from typical paintings of Jesus; it was also the only one that had ever
stopped Colton in his tracks. Sonja and I thought it was interesting that
when Colton said, “This one’s right,” he hadn’t known the portrait, called
Prince of Peace: The Resurrection, was painted by another child—a child
who had also claimed to visit heaven.
Finally getting an idea of what Jesus looks like wasn’t the only
interesting thing that came out of our visit to Mountain View Wesleyan. It
was also the first time we realized how Colton’s encounter with his sister in
heaven would impact people on earth.