Painting the Roses Red!

Tonight at Family Home Evening my friend Joe gave our lesson. He shared the Parable of the Bicycle that tells about a little girl who wants a bicycle. Her father tells her if she saves up all her pennies she'll have enough to get one. So she does. She takes her change jar to her dad and they go to the bike store. She falls in love with one and sees the price tag: More than $100. She begins to cry. Her father asks her how much she has and she replies "sixty-one cents." She is devastated she doesn't have enough. Her father tells her he'll make a deal with her. He asks her to give everything she has, a hug, and a kiss, and he'll make up for what she lacks. She agrees, gives him the money, a hug, and a kiss, and they take the bike home.
The parable is about the Grace of God. He asks that we give everything we can, and that we love Him and keep His Commandments to the best of our ability. We know we must be perfect, but we will never have enough. But He does, and He allows us to use what need to make up for what we can't provide. Yet.
This parable reminds me of another one that I think of. When I was in High School I was in a psychology class. Besides learning and practicing power-napping, the only thing I remember doing was making a collage about what psychology meant to us. While I was flipping through magazines I found an advertisement with a little boy and his father. There was painter's tape and drop clothes, and the father was painting the wall a golden yellow, reaching very high with his roller. Next to him was his maybe three or four year old son. He was looking up at him admiringly and coloring on the un-painted part of the wall with his crayons.
While we look at this image with our earthly minds we see a little boy who is about to be in big trouble!  We got our collages back and I wish I had kept it. I didn't realize how significant this simple advertisement would be to me a few years later. In an Institute Class with Brother Soderburg I realized the meaning I would like to share with you.
The little boy is me. I'm very young and entirely incapable of helping my father paint the wall. But I use the tools I have, my crayons, and do what I can. I'm not an artist or a painter, but I look to my Father and I attempt to be like him. Coloring on the wall is the best I can do right now. My Father sees my effort and He knows I'm doing my best. He knows that I can't do anything else, but he sees that I am trying and giving everything I have with my small ability. So after I've done all I can, He will paint over my marks and make them a piece of His work, He'll make them meaningful and worth while. He will make up for what I lack. That is what The Atonement means to me.