Drawing God

One of my favorite responses to certain theological questions was from someone who said, “How can anyone know that?” If religious people are honest, they accept that there are many unanswered questions about God and the spiritual realm.

A delightful and beautifully written and illustrated new children’s book deals with one of those mysterious questions: What does God look like? Drawing God, written by Karen Kiefer and illustrated by Kathy De Wit, tells the story of Emma, a young girl who is inspired to draw like Picasso after a field trip to an art museum. She decides to draw God as “the brightest sun.” After Emma shows her drawing to a friend who tells her that she drew the sun, not God, Emma draws God as a loaf of bread. Once again, a friend tells her she hasn’t drawn God. After another drawing is rejected by her friends, everyone in her school knows about her drawings of God and they start drawing God “…and every picture was different.”

Author Karen Kiefer was inspired to write the book when she overheard two children talking about how “you can’t talk about God at school, because it makes people too uncomfortable.” Kiefer has not just written a book but launched a movement. November 7 is World Drawing God Day, an event to “connect children around the world, and to unleash the contagious faith that lives in each one of them.” The World Drawing God Day section of The Drawing God website has a wonderful Idea Kit to use with the book and there’s even a patch for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. The suggested activities could be used at home or in Sunday school or another children’s ministry or intergenerational event.

The book is published by Paraclete Press, which celebrated the book by creating their own Drawing God pictures; quantity discounts are available from Paraclete. You can also purchase the book from Amazon and other online and brick and mortar booksellers.

A review copy of this book was provided by the publisher.