When God Makes Scribbles Beautiful

Sometimes, hard things happen. Sometimes, they happen to children. According to the National Survey of Children’s Health, over 34 million children have experienced one or more types of adverse childhood experiences or potentially traumatic events that occur in childhood.

When God Makes Scribbles Beautiful helps kids trust that God can take even the hardest things and make them beautiful. This picture book imagines that the hard things in a child’s life is a scribble following him everywhere. The child can’t get rid of the scribble, no matter how hard he tries. Over time, he realizes that God is with him even though the scribble is there too. Eventually, God turns the boy’s scribble into something beautiful: like a cloud in the sky or a steppingstone that leads him somewhere amazing.  

Ultimately, When God Makes Scribbles Beautiful gives young readers spiritual encouragement to plant seeds of hope in the face of difficult childhood experiences.  

“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also put eternity in their hearts, but no one can discover the work God has done from beginning to end.” – Ecclesiastes 3:11

Kate Rietema is the biological and adoptive mother of five girls and has been a mom to many others through foster care. Throughout her life, Kate has experienced God’s deep kindness, and she loves to share her stories with others. Kate works as a nurse, volunteers at her county jail, and lives at the campground she and her husband operate in West Michigan.