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Young Wren loves to visit Pop and Gran on their farm in Australia. She especially enjoys painting with Gran in her art studio behind the farmhouse.

When Gran asks Wren what they’ll paint that day, she feels important, as if “what she thought and wanted mattered.” Wren decides to paint the special feeling that is filling her heart because sometimes the girl and her grandmother don’t paint visible things. Instead, they paint their feelings and call it “painting prayers.”

Though Wren begins by painting with bright, happy colors to depict a sunrise, reading a good book while nestling a cat on her lap, and enjoying Gran’s molasses cookies, her mood suddenly shifts and her colors blur and resemble sloppy mud. Wren is convinced that her prayer painting is ruined and that it “was too ugly to be a prayer.”

With Gran’s guidance, Wren names the feeling she’s struggling with—disappointment—and explores why she feels that way. As Wren talks about her discontent with friends who shunned her and even her disappointment with God, she begins to understand that God welcomes honest prayers.

Wren continues to work on her painting, splashing vivid colors on her canvas as she experiences the joy of being in Jesus’ loving presence: “As she painted, she pictured Jesus listening to her, just like Gran. He didn’t look upset. He looked like he understood. That made her feel special, like what she thought and felt mattered to him.”

In an author note, Sharon Garlough Brown explores the role of prayers of lament in the book of Psalms, prayers such as the one Wren expresses in her painting when she feels disappointment in others and in God. Garlough Brown points out that we can learn two things from lament: “First, such a prayer is an act of trust. ... Second, prayers of lament are a way to practice hope.”

Illustrator Jessica Linn Evans’s artwork masterfully captures Wren’s various emotions and the loving relationship that she experiences with Gran and Jesus.

Not Finished Yet will make an outstanding addition to a family’s or a church library’s devotional collection. The book includes discussion questions. (IVP Kids)

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