“Are you judging the balloon competition?” 

On Monday, two Foundation girls came up to me as I was walking past the library.  They had just spent some of their lunch time in the library submitting their coloured hot-air balloons.  Once completed, these hot-air balloon colouring sheets are handed in to the librarian and after the competition ends, the artwork is judged by classes. The winners get a voucher to purchase a book during Book Week.   All the students are doing their best work having fun in the process and hoping to win.  These girls wanted to know if I was going to be judging the balloons.  At that point, I wasn’t even sure what the process entailed but the girls were aware someone, possibly me, was going to judge their work. 

My thoughts are going into how many times we, as humans, are conscious of someone judging our actions, processes, states of being and many other things we do in life.  I wonder how the conscious knowledge that whatever we do is judged by others around us and how that controls our actions.  Do we act out of our own desire to be useful members of our community?  Is the motivation for our actions based on other people's opinions of us?  Do we base the artwork of our lives on the prize we hope to win, or do we focus on doing our best work regardless of the outcome? 

The balloon artwork is going to be displayed in the library, and the students will get to see their own work and the work of others.  On the bigger scheme of things, the “artwork” of our lives is equally visible to us as to those in our communities.  When you take stock of how you have coloured your life, would you be proud to point out what you have done to make it colourful, and would you be able to explain your choice of colours? 

At the end of Book Week, everyone will have something to celebrate.  For some it will be the voucher from finishing the coloured balloon judged as prize worthy, for some it will be how many pages they will have read and dozens of other achievements.  As we gear ourselves up for reading and all the joys that brings to us, may we remember that God cares about us and is interested in our best work.  How are you colouring the hot-air balloon of your life?