Gifts

I think I’ve already mentioned this before, but I’ll just say a little more here; I think I’ve always wanted to be an artist. It must have started off in the same place as every child does, with a crayon and a piece of paper. But for me, I didn’t want to stop there. I just kept going. I remember standing one day in my hallway, feeling excited about a new drawing I had done. I must have been around six, and I had felt like I just had made a master piece, my best piece yet! I looked it over, feeling great, and then I asked my family what I needed to make it better. They looked it over, and then pointed out that the hands and feet needed some help. They were scribbled, round balls. I think I remember being offended that my near perfect drawing had been found faulty. But I think that was the time that I decided that I would always look for ways to improve my drawings, starting with how I did the hands and the feet. And then in more recent years, I have realized that drawing and painting is something that I enjoy above most other things, although it is under my love for God.

I really, really love to do art. Since I have decided to stay at home with my family, art has been a pretty good fit for me; I want to make a home business off it, selling it from my father’s house, and, Lord willing, from my husbands house.

I was reading just the other day a book about how to write and sell Christian novels (my sister got the book from the library, since she wants to go into novel writing) and the author began a chapter with Psalms 119:105 which is, of course, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” And I love what she said about it. Gods word isn’t a floodlight that lights up the whole road ahead of us, but it is a lamp. It lights up a little space around us for us to walk in. And the author said that writers should do the same thing. We as writers (and I say as artists too) should not force our “truths” on the reader, force-feeding them our own opinions. But we should gently and firmly point to the truth that God points us to. If people once realize that they are having a foreign idea put into their heads, they tend to rebel. We need to point to the truth not push them into it! After all, Jesus did say, “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves.”

I’ll try not to make this post terribly long—although I have already made it rather long—I wanted to open the subject. I love art. I believe it is a gift given to me by God. I believe He wants me to use it in worship of Him, and also, if I can, to help the lost sheep of His flock. I don’t entirely know how I’m going to do it, but I know that my Lord wants me to do it anyway. Please keep me in prayer about it. I certainly need it.

 

Shalom