Before

Last month we went to the renaissance fair and enjoyed a beautiful day. On our way out I looked to my left and there was this woman sitting on a bench. It was as if everything went quiet and my peripheral vision faded away and I had tunnel vision right on her. She looked really sad and empty sitting there in her Rennassiance dress. She was on one end of the bench and I felt the strongest desire to go sit in the empty spot next to her and talk to her. Tell her God is real and created her and loves her and pointed her out to me.

But I didn't. I figured everybody would think I was nuts. As we're walking out the door, hold on, um, I have to go talk to that woman about God.

The whole long walk through the woods back to the car I had the most regretful feeling in my chest.
Who knows what was wrong with that woman. And she could have had someone out of all the hundreds of people walk up out of the crowd to say out of all these people here today, I have to tell you that God loves you. Jesus defeated death that you specifically may have peace.

She could have thought I was nuts. But it also could have been a message she was meant to hear.

I told Shanna in the car on the way home and right then sketched it out and decided it was my next painting. My friend Jill had the awesome idea of praying for the woman while I painted her.

To me it would be a reminder to listen to those promptings I get in my heart, and also a huge reminder of God's love. That he knows when we're hurting. He sends encouragement to us, even will handpick 1 person out of a huge crowd. But sometimes we don't listen.

So as I started the painting it turned not into a scene of this woman at the fair, but it turned into a sort of self portrait.

In a sense I used to be that woman, I know how she felt. I felt the emptiness, hopelessness. All of my joy in life was tied up in the next event or big thing to look forward to, then half the time they wouldn't be as great as you'd think.

A while back I was reading how in the old testament when people had significant encounters with God they would build a monument in the place it happened as a reminder to them and those who came after them.

I put on my prayer list a while back for God to help me paint my 'monument', but didn't know what it would look like.

So this painting is my attempt at expressing the desolate place where I was before I had God in my life. I always had this little pull in me to go toward God, but I always ignored it and was pretty much ruled by the darknesses in my life. Depression. Anxiety. Discontent. Insecurity. Trying to find happiness in the way my husband treated me, a vacation to look forward to, a new car, dreams of getting out of our apartment and into a house. Things that do not truly satisfy except so very temporarily.

I think I am going to paint the 'after' painting in the spring. The tree will be on the left side of the painting and will be an apple blossom in spring, flowers blooming, puffy white clouds. Right now I picture holding my bible to my heart and peacefully and cheerfully and gratefully smiling up into the clear blue sky.

Then framed next to each other the tree will be in the middle dividing the two worlds, the two lives.

I am so grateful that I was forever tugged out of that place. It may not have been hugely noticeable to people from the outside, but on the inside I don't even have words for the battle that has been won. Actually Psalm 116 in its entirety does a pretty good job for me. I am forever grateful.

My soundtrack for this song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIw0ewEsNHs

I literally listened to it over and over as I painted it. Even though this song has the words Hallelujah, I don't think it was written out of biblical faith, which I liked for this painting, because though at the time I professed with my mouth that Jesus Christ was my savior, I didn't live it in my heart, and my heart was empty and hurt. To me this song is a kind of hope for the joy of a Hallelujah, but its not there and its all broken and miserable inside.

Talking Vegetables

I am reading a book called Me, Myself and Bob. A True Story about Dreams, God, and Talking Vegetables. Its by the VeggieTales creator, Phil Vischer. A friend recommended I get it just to read the chapter on dreams, but I am reading the whole book and find it so fascinating.

He got the vision to create good television for kids when he was a kid watching MTV. He said even though he loved MTV and admitted to liking all the sexy chicks in the videos, while watching Madonna gyrate and sing Like a Virgin, he thought Oh Lord, this isn't good, someone's got to do something about this. He thought about all the kids from sea to shining sea growing up on this. And in that moment he realized he was supposed to do something about it!

And what he was supposed to do was not protest or anything like that, he was supposed to make good, quality, wholesome shows for kids that shared God's love with them. He knew it without a doubt. From there on out that was pretty much the focus of his life. He was very talented and innovative and worked extremely hard. (Veggie tales was actually the first computer animated 30 minute series in the US)

So this excerpt was right after he gave his wife their last 10 dollars to go buy dog food.

The apartment was still and dark. Our daughter Shelby, now 18 mos. old was sleeping in the next room. I couldn't afford to give her health insurance. I couldn't afford to pay her rent. Now I didn't even know how I would feed her.

"You fool," a voice inside me said. "Look at what a mess you've made. No one can rely on you. You can't even take care of your family. And for what? This stupid kids show dream? This thing you think God told you to do?' My eyes welled up with tears as the doubt grew louder."What if you were wrong all along? What if all this wasn't from God? What if all this was just your idea? Just you? Man, would that ever make you the fool of the year!"

For the first time, I doubted. For the first time, I wondered if perhaps, I had made the whole thing up. My "call" - everything. "God" I called out, "tell me this isn't just me - tell me you're in this too!"

Right afterward he ends up noticing a letter sticking out from the pile of bills, hand addressed with no return address. Inside was a cashiers check for $400, with a handwritten, unsigned note that simply said, "God laid it on my heart that you might need this."

He says:

My heart stopped. Four hundred dollars wasn't necessarily going to turn our lives around, but the message was crystal clear. God was there in the room, at the table, with me. He was with me in my darkest hour, when voices were screaming, "Give up! This isn't God, its just you, fool!" There he was. Sitting beside me at the black laminate table in our loft apartment as my daughter slept in the next room and my wife hunted for dog food with our last ten dollars - God was there, quietly whispering, "I'm with you. Don't give up."

: )