we have this hope

I'm still working on this picture-downloading issue, but I've been meaning to share these ones for a few months, so I guess I'd better do it before they get too dated. The photo quality isn't that great... I have my pixels set at super-low so that I can fit more pictures on the memory cards... but anyway, here you go.

We had a Lay Witness Mission weekend at our church a few weeks back. Basically just a time of getting together and hearing what the Lord has done, praying and sharing together, and allowing the Lord to speak hope into our lives. I felt that God wanted me to do a painting each week in the months before the weekend, and so that was my role in preparing for and advertising the weekend.

The first picture was the theme verse for the weekend. I painted this picture when I was pregnant with Rilla and dealing with a lot of junk from my past and desperately needing something bright that would yell "HOPE" at me from the wall every day. It's on a 24 x 30 inch canvas; the rest are 20 x 24 inches. I painted the others late on Friday or Saturday nights so that we could get them to church on Sunday morning.

Hebrews 6:19

2 Corinthians 1:10

(my favorite)

Psalm 25:3

Romans 5:1-5

Psalm 31:24

Psalm 130:7&5

Isaiah 40:11

(my least favorite)

There's one other one (Jeremiah 29:11), but I can't find the photo of it right now.

I have to admit that when I look at these, they aren't really what I consider my style of art. I mean, they're okay, but they are just so over-the-top exuberant that I wouldn't really want them in my living room. But this is what God asked me to do, so I did it. And I think the things I learned from it are these. There is something else that God is calling me to do, and it will be quite time-consuming, and I just can't see how I will ever get it done. But when He asked me to do these verses, I made the time to do it each week. None of them turned out quite the way that I wanted them to... and several turned out completely different than my original intention... but I got them done, and I wouldn't have gotten any of them done if I had insisted on perfection.

Painting these verses verified my suspicion that I really don't have time to do extra things like this, but it also made me realize that He can enable to me carve out an hour or two each week to do this other, bigger, more intimidating thing that He wants me to do. The point was to get the verses done, aka to be obedient and get the message out to the congregation each Sunday (by putting the canvases in the foyer), not to show what an amazing painter I am (ha!). The point was God and His glory, not me and my glory. And so I think that is another lesson in obedience for me. When He calls me to do it, it's really not about doing it perfectly; if He wanted it done perfectly, He'd do it Himself! But He's asking me to do it, and so He knows my limits and weaknesses. And He wouldn't call me to do it if it weren't possible... in His strength... for me to obey Him.