Thursday, January 30, 2014

Landscape “Out of my comfort zone”

 

 

I really have to thank God for helping me through this particular painting.  This is what I love to do more than anything, but it’s been so long since I’ve tried.  I’ve been dancing all around it for quite awhile now.

And there were quite a few obstacles to overcome.

First, I sawed and put together the wood slats myself, so it’s not perfectly square.  And the slats don’t fit together smoothly.

DSCF1658 (2) (640x112)

 

Then there were some places in the wood that, even though I love the grain showing through, were a bit unsightly and distracting.

DSCF1658 (3) (289x640)               DSCF1658 (548x640)          DSCF1658 (5) (192x640)

I just kept asking God to help me know what to do, help me stay relaxed and help me to know that it doesn’t have to be perfect.  Besides, I wondered how I could go wrong painting a picture with the beautiful colors and the creation He had made Himself.

I use photographs of actual places I found in magazines.  About five to be exact, and put them together to make the scene.  So I put a lot of studying into it before I even started painting.

I knew it wouldn’t be perfect and it isn’t.  I struggled down to the very last detail with that intense, anxious fear that someone would snarl their nose at it, because it wouldn’t be, “ perfect”.  Even with all of that, it began to come together, slowly.

From the hills in the back ground under the sky,

DSCF1658 (4)

and the tree line at the bottom of the rolling hills with the red barn,

DSCF1673

and the sweet country mountain road,

DSCF1674

to the bright orange tree in the foreground, I struggled.

DSCF1675

I wanted to add an element of surprise to it, something that made it mine, and I struggled with that too!  I thought someone would look at it and say, why, why would you do that?  But I did it anyway, I put glitter in spots, it made me so happy, I knew I had to do something else.

So I did, I put copper tacks across the top and across the bottom.  And that really made me happy. 

DSCF1672

And so my painting is done. I learned a lot and I have to say, God held my hand the whole way.  I thank Him for that, it made me feel that it was just as important to Him as it was to me.  He gave me the ideas and created the trees, hills and beautiful sky that inspired me.  He helped me through  all the fears I faced even including this very post where I am actually showing it and sharing about my lack of confidence.

DSCF1669

Thank you God for giving me the courage and the freedom to try, even down to the copper tacks.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

No More Bah-hum-bug Valentine’s Day

 

DSCF1633

 

I know Valentine’s Day is approaching.  I try to stay in sinc with the special days coming up and gear my crafts toward them just in case I might possibly be able to sell something on my craft site.

Even though I didn’t want to think about Valentine’s Day, I felt I had to.  Valentine’s is about romance and love.  Only when my children were small did I have the privilege of experiencing love.

But now, I am experiencing life on my own, alone.  Sometimes I catch myself feeling sorry for “me”.  I hear people talking about what they are going to get their sweetheart for the special day coming up.  I see hearts everywhere advertising Valentine’s Day.  His and her this and her’s and his that.  I try to ignore it all, but it’s really not possible.  So yesterday I did a small craft and it said “I will always love you”.  But, I wasn’t impressed with it or what it said.

This morning I was trying to steer away from the theme, but it kept creeping in.  I found out why as I began pondering what I was going to put on this canvas.  All these “love” things kept popping into my head and my response was, no, no, no.  Then a song came on the radio…………………………….

Yes, there it is……………. “my heart is spoken for”.  Covered by His love divine, child of the risen Lord.

My heart is spoken for

I do have a Valentine.  My Valentine is my Comforter, my Love Divine, my God, my Heavenly Father, my Teacher, my Friend, my Tear Catcher, my Shoulder to lean on, my Counselor, my Creator, my King.  My Valentine is the greatest Valentine of all, He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, my Rock and my Savior.

 

So………………………..

 

DSCF1630

Tuesday, January 7, 2014

God is preparing you for flight……….


DSCF1604

As we experience different aspects of life we grow, learn and begin to be able to say what we feel and think.

When my oldest was about 2 years old she obviously wasn’t feeling well and I kept trying to figure out what was wrong.  When I would try to communicate with her, asking her where it hurt, she would say “my tummy hurts”.  But when I finally decided it was time to go to the doctor, we discovered she had pneumonia.  She was telling me the only thing she knew to say, she wasn’t familiar with the location of lungs or phrases like, it’s hard to breathe.  But she was telling me as best as she could.

As she grew and learned she was more able to tell me exactly where she was hurting or uncomfortable.  This is just an example of common, basic learning and necessary for life.

But as we become older a more spiritual education begins to take place, an emotional journey I guess you could say.  A journey that God is in complete control of.  Whether your parents are believers in God and teaching you His Word is really of no consequence.  God is preparing you for flight, a flight of your own.  Whether or not your parents, or those who are in control of your life have it all figured out spiritually or not really doesn’t matter.  God is in control of it all.  He is preparing each of us for flight into this world as a spiritual being and our flight when we leave this world to join Him.

Rebellion, vanity and greed can get in our way of even the easiest lessons in life, as they can the spiritual lessons also.  Earthly and spiritual life lessons continue on a daily basis as long as we are alive.  The spiritual lessons will go on and on.  I’d like to get them as they come along so I can continue on to the next one.  But certain things in our lives keep us from getting it the first, second, third and sometimes even more times than we care to admit.

But through all the lessons and things we learn, we become better at articulating our spiritual feelings.  Here is where our wings come in to play.  When someone is hurting, you can say, “Can I help”?  Maybe you have gone through something similar and can lend a helping hand or just an ear.  Your wings are flapping now with the understanding of why you went through something, it was simply to help someone else and Glorify God in the process.  And you realize that God was preparing you for flight for this journey quite sometime ago.  Through the lesson, you learned how to help another.

Isn’t that what it’s all about?

If you like this art or enjoyed the story, click here to purchase a print.