In The Wilderness

So this is my attempt at painting Ron DiCianni "In the Wilderness". One is mine. One is Ron DiCianni's. It was a very challenging piece. My biggest challenge is painting people, and being that this person in the painting is Mr. DiCianni's version of Christ...gulp...no pressure. LOL!

I painted this for my dad. (Mom don't show him yet ;) I wanted to paint him something special for his 75th birthday. He's had a rough couple of years. He has heart issues, diabetes issues, double knee replacement, and chronic back pain for years.  A doctor finally diagnosed him with a birth defect in his back which cause bone spurs between his vertebrae. He then had back surgery which caused all kinds of kidney and bladder complications, which in turn caused renal failure. And to top that off he finally admitted he had a horrible addiction to pain medicine, which almost caused him to take his own life. To say my Dad was in the wilderness is an understatement. Not much fun for his family either.

So I wanted to paint a picture for him that depicted these trials in his life.

We could see our Dad slip away from the Lord more and more through the years. It...was...heartbreaking!!

My dad gave his life to Christ when I was in high school (after he got clean and sober)  He was on fire for the Lord. He didn't drink a drop for many, many years. But slowly Satan got a foot hold of my dad..and he kept slipping more and more. I prayed Lord bring him back. Bring him back. Because you see, when God starts a good work...he ALWAYS completes it. I clung to that promise!

This was a very dark time for my dad, and our family. Our family has been down this addiction road before. You feel helpless. To love someone who is an addict is UGLY, and painful.  But God is faithful, and HE ALWAYS keeps his promises.

For years I prayed for my dad..For the Lord to bring him back to him. I hoped, I prayed, it would happen. But honestly I had my doubts.  Now I know we are suppose to trust the Lord, but just like the man who brought his son to Jesus to be healed and the Lord asked him ,"What do you mean, 'If I can'? Anything is possible if a person believes." and the man replied,  "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" That was me...crying out,  "help me with my unbelief."

Never in my wildest dreams did I think we would have to walk this addiction road again. NEVER! But you see, just because you are a Christian doesn't mean you won't face temptations and trials. Even Jesus did. The kicker is he didn't sin.

After a week stay in the hospital in January, to ease my dad's detox process. He was sent home. The next month was hell on earth, not just for him, but for my family. To help a person come off drugs is disgusting. Plain and simple. It's hell!

I remember getting the call, and realizing my mom needed help. Crying on the ride north yelling at God..saying ..really God...really?? 74 years old and here we are again with addiction. Really??

 Then I heard the whisper..Yes at 74...I will bring him back to me, and this is the way I'm going to do it. All I ask is for you to do is to act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Micah 6:8. 

There have been so many lessons the Lord has revealed to me through this all. Forgiveness..Love..Mercy..Compassion.

It has been a long few months. But I'm so happy to say my dad is clean and healthy, and has picked up his cross and started walking with the Lord again. Hallelujah!! It is so awesome to hear him laugh. To see the light in his eyes again!

We are all a work in progress. We all we stumble and fall, but God is merciful, and patient. In Hebrews 4:14 it says , So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. ¹⁵ This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most.

How about you? Have you ever had time you doubted God?  Have you ever had a time wondering in the wilderness, wondering if God hears you?  Believe me I understand. But hold on...Don't stop praying...He hears! Thank God..that He is for us!!  He is gracious...He is patient... and He will never leave us.

Disciple Mural

This is my latest mural called "The Disciple Mural" taken from Matthew 28:19.  Jesus said this to his disciples after he had risen from the dead. 

Let's take the story up a couple verses ahead of this and put it in it's whole context. 

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.17   When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. 18Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

When I finish a mural I hide a cross in it. Just my little way of giving thanks to God. I feel every good gift is from God. I thank Him every day for his gift of eternal life through his son Jesus, and the blessings he pours out to me. He is the one who created me and gave me this talent, and I pray the art I create encourages others and bring the Glory to God.

I love the end of this passage, "and surely I am with you always to the very end of the age." I LOVE that He is with us ALWAYS!! No matter if we are going through a hard time or if we are going through good times. He's there, He never leaves us!! Thank you Lord!!

Last Sunday as I was standing next to someone in church and looking at the mural. She found the cross and said, "now that I found the cross, my eyes goes to it all the time." It made me giggle, and made me think, isn't that where our eyes, heart, and mind should always go?  To the cross!

May you have a blessed Easter and rejoice in the risen Lord, and the love that was poured out for you on the cross. 

Love Notes In My Lunch Box

I love to write these little love notes to my kiddos to remind them I' m thinking of them, or to encourage them with a scripture. I don't always have time to do this tho, and this convicted me today. The scripture of "train a child the way they should go," went running through my mind. Prov. 22:6.
 
I'm not posting this to say, "look at me, aren't I a great mom, don't I have it all together?" Quite honestly I feel like a mess most of the time. I'm the first to admit I'm so far from having it together, and every time I play the "comparison" game I end up losing..So trust me that's not my intention.

I'm posting this to share and encourage other busy mamas. The conviction I feel is usually a prompting or the elbow nudge that I haven't been doing something that I should be doing. It's God's little love note in MY lunch box.

Oh Lord help me to find ways to remind my children of your love. Help me not to get so busy with things of "this world" that I forget to teach my children that they are made for a different world. That you created them uniquely, beautifully, and for a wonderful purpose.  How this world wants to steal our children's innocence If I'm not intentional about "training" them in  the way they should go, this world will. The time is so short that our children are in our home. This parenting thing is hard, hard, hard!! But I know I don't go it alone. Lord help me to train, to equip, and to show my children the way to you. Not just with little notes but with how I live my life. I thank you for the little love notes in MY lunch box.

 

The Beauty of a Heart for the Lord

So many of us women have, "image issues." We put WAY too much value in our looks. We live in a society where looks are glorified, and if you don't look a certain way, you are unattractive. This starts at such an early age. I remember coaching for the girls on the run program and having a little girl come up to me (in 3rd grade-9 years old) say, "look at my thighs Mrs. McDonnell, they are so fat." Ugh.

I love the story in 1 Samuel 16:7. When Samuel went to anointed the new king of Israel. He came to the house of Jesse. All of Jesse's big handsome sons came before Samuel and the Lord said..nope not him, nor him. Is this all of them? Jesse said well....there is the youngest but he's in the field with the sheep. (kinda like...that runt...you don't want to see him.) Samuel said, "go get him." When David appeared. the Lord said this is He, and anointed David..IN FRONT OF HIS BIG BROTHERS!! OH YEah!! whoo whoo!! Can you imagine the looks on the brothers faces. Wish I could have seen that!

You see the world puts value in how you look. But the Lord sees the beauty in the heart of each of His children. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. Luke 6:45.

Now David was not a perfect man, but the Lord refers to him as a man after His own heart. God used David to slay a Giant!! This runt of the family lead the army of Israel. Now David made some horrible mistakes also. But when he did he repented and humbly asked God to forgive Him. You see that's the type of heart the Lord is looking for. Humble! In Jeremiah 29:13 it says You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

I think God doesn't want you to go clean yourself up make yourself perfect before you come to him. He simply wants your heart surrendered to Him. The good, the bad, and the ugly. When surrendered He can use you to do amazing things for Him, and it doesn't matter what size your thighs are. 

"You know, it's a good thing that God chose me 

before I was born. 

Because He surely would not have,

 if He had waited after." 

 Charles H. Spurgeon

Tears In A Bottle

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalm 56:8

Well It's the end of August and summer is coming to an end. Sigh... I love having the lazy days of summer to relax and not have a schedule and not have to run here and there. But this summer was such a roller coaster of emotions, I hate to admit it but I'm glad it's done. 

My girls called this summer the "roller coaster summer."  We experienced such highs and some major lows. But what we discovered time and time again, God is in control.

Our summer consisted of a family vacation of a lifetime out west. I hated leaving our black 13 yr. old lab, Purdy (she had been sick earlier this year). We left her with my sister up north. I knew she loved it up there, but we also knew old dogs don't handle change well. But we really had no other choice. I knew my sister would give her lots of love and good care.

We had a wonderful time on our vacation. Made some wonderful memories with our kiddos. Saw things that took our breath away. Got to stand at the foot of a mountain and sing "how great is our God." Ahhhhmazingg!!!

But meanwhile back home...Purdy didn't do so good. The first week was rough..not eating, tummy issues, not sleeping. But then the second week she bounced back and had a great time chasing gophers, eating scraps of food dropped by my niece, and hanging out with my sisters lab Toby. But the 3 day into the third week she stopped eating, and the fourth day I got the call early in morning saying Purdy had another seizure and she wasn't doing well. My sister took her to the vet that morning. We hopped in the car and tried to make it in time, but got the call that the vet couldn't find a pulse and they had to put her down. 

We didn't get to say goodbye. 

After 13 years of love and devotion, we didn't get to say goodbye to our old girl. I can't tell you friends how this hurts my heart!  How it hurts my children's heart. But once again I'm reminded I"M NOT IN CONTROL. ugh!

I never thought in a million years I would have shed as many tears for a dog, but I have. It's one thing to deal with the grief in your heart, but to try to comfort your children's is a whole other thing.

Purdy was in our family for 13 years. We have been married for 16 years, so not much of our married life have been without our Purdy. My children don't remember life without their Purdy girl. 

So we push through and go on. But there definitely is emptiness in our home. 

We know she was a gift from almighty God to our family. We praise Him for her love and devotion to our family! She truly was the best dog. Always obedient, always loving (even if you just yelled at her for eating your kids science project.)  Always there to greet you with a wagging tail, and for Phil (my hubby) a song.

So our hearts are sad, and feel her loss everyday. But we find comfort in knowing that God sees that. He knows sorrow, and HE is our comforter, He is our peace.

In Psalm 56 it says He keeps track of all my sorrows, and hold all my tears in a bottle, and He records them in His book.

Now this scripture hits me like a ton of bricks this summer as I reflect upon it all. I remember standing and looking up at Mt. Moran in the Tetons saying, "Wow! God you are an amazing creator!" as tears of joy spread down my cheeks,  and a few days later holding my beloved labs paw saying, "Wow! God you are an amazing creator." as tears of sorrow spread down my cheeks. 

Each time God was there!

How great is our God; that He sees me at my greatest and at my lowest, and He is soverign through it all. 

Scripture tells me; He holds ALL my tears. He was there in my mountain top moment and in my valley. He holds my hand through it all. (Isaiah 41:13) I don't have to go it alone. His word says He will never leave me or forsake me. (Deut 31:6)

As summer comes to an end...lots of firsts in our home. First time we mowed the grass with out having to go get the pooper scooper. First time I swept the floor and didn't have any dog hair, and the first time I entered our house, and I didn't hear the thump thump of a tail to greet me. Sniff, sniff! 

It's a new normal for us, and I know it will get better. 

But this summer I was reminded I'm not in control, and I never have to go it alone. 

I have a savior who sees, who feels, and who loves me through it all...His scars prove it!

Blessed be the name of the Lord!

 

GOD'S PROMISES

Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”Genesis 9:16

Over Holy Week I had the extreme privilege of painting a mural called "God's Promises."

I went into this job praying, as I always do, "God use me, may your glory be shown through this talent you have blessed me with."

As I sit back and reflect on this journey of this mural. I have never been more humbled in all my life, and I have fallen more in love with our wonderful creator. The Lord revealed himself to me in ways I never thought possible. I went into this mural thinking I was going to be used to bless someone. When in turn the Lord blessed ME! I can't help but sing..."how great is our God."

The story behind the mural.

It was a cold sunny day, the day I met this family to discuss the mural they wanted for their little girls bedroom. As they invited me into their beautiful home I was met with excitement and warmth. 

We went up to the little girls room and they showed me this VERY tall wall in which the mural was to go on. The little girl shared with me how much she just LOVED rainbows. When I asked her why she loved them so much. She said because of her brother. As she said this her mama started to get tears in her eyes. Mom shared with me that they lost their 12 yr old son very unexpectedly from a undetected heart disorder. 

My heart broke.

She continued to share that on the day of his wake his sister put a rainbow sticker on her brothers shirt, and as they left the building, in which the service was held; there in the sky was a beautiful double rainbow. Shining brightly from heaven to earth. WOW!! 

I so understand the significance of why this family LOVES rainbows!!

I went out of this meeting so touched and felt privileged to be invited into this families hurt and healing in remembering and honoring their precious little boy.

As I went back to my studio to sketch out the mural.  I studied photos of rainbows and meadows. Not only was I trying to figure out what I was going to create, but HOW I was going to create it.  To paint rainbows realistically is very difficult. Technically I had no clue how to pull this off. I studied and researched but nothing came to me for the design. 

Frustration set in. Ugh! I remember sitting in my studio going. "OK God, what...what do you want me to paint? "

Then one morning true to form, the Lord put a picture in my head. This usually happens when I reach the end of my rope.

I went down to my studio that morning and sketched out the mural. (see photo)

The family loved it! The only thing they wanted to add was an angel in the sky. 
DONE!

The week I worked on the mural was holy week. I listened to faith radio all week and sang praises to God. He guided my hand and kept me safe on a very little plank suspended 13 ft in the air. Trust me, I was well aware of EVERY step. LOL! 

The whole time I prayed for this family. I prayed in my head, I prayed out loud. I was a prayer warrior, and in the quiet I heard the Lord say to me..."Tell them I love them." I said Lord, "When? how do I do that?"

The Lord gave me the opportunity on the last day. 

The mom came into the bedroom in which I was painting. Gulp...I asked her If I could talk to her. First I told her I was a Christian and sometimes I hear from God through prayer and through his word. I told her He wanted me to tell her that He loved her and her family, and that your son is in His loving arms.

Silence...then tears, and more tears. 

Then something amazing happened. She opened up and shared with me. She knew He loved her. She knew her boy was in God's arms, and though she will probably never understand the why...she is trying to trust. 

Tears..hugs!

Mom shared that she was overwhelmed with all the love her family has received from all over. I saw how God surrounded this hurting, broken family with HIS people to reveal HIS love to them. From their church family, friends, even the people they got their puppy from. All wonderful people pouring God's love into them. 

Not only that,  but there where little touches of God's love painted in the sky. Not just once but twice. 

On the second anniversary of remembering when the Lord called this beautiful boy home. They went to release some balloons in remembrance and God gave them another rainbow. WOW!! 

I see God revealed everywhere in this journey. I'm sobbing writing this! So humbled, broken, compassionate, inspired, honored, and loved! Words that come to my mind in this journey.

God revealed how tender He is. That He sees us hurting, so He sends people, signs, little tidbits to know He's there. He sees- and He cares. He weaves us all together to encourage each other, to help us on this journey. 

I saw how life is hard, but God is good. I saw what it looks like to trust God even when life around you is falling apart.

Ironic that on the day I had a chance to visit with mom it was Good Friday. 

I now have a better understanding of our Father's heart and what it must have been like for Him to loose his one and only Son.  Through the pain...there's love! Love our human minds can't understand. 

Because of His pain, we have the hope of holding our loved ones in our arms again. Because of His sacrifice we have the promise that He will never leave us or forsake us. In Matthew 28:20 Jesus said, "and surely I am with you ALWAYS even to the very end of the age."

He is with us.. He is soverign even in the dark.... even in the dawn. 

On a side note.
Do you know how rainbows are made?

When a beam of sunlight comes down to Earth, the light is white.  

But, if the light beam happens to hit raindrops on the way down at a 

certain angle, the different colors that make up the beam separate 

so that we can see them -- in the form of a rainbow. 

No wonder God uses the sign of a rainbow to reveal his faithfulness to us.

He is there. He's LIGHT... but this world is broken and storms come (Rain). But when you give God your storm, and you let His light penetrate your brokenness He promises something beautiful (The Rainbow). 

So simple...So beautiful!

Thanks be to God that even when things around us don't make sense you have a plan, and you make all things new. You promise that when things fall apart your love endures forever. So we hope in you Oh lord, renew our strength! Help us soar like eagles, help us to not grow weary. Help us Oh Lord to keep our eyes fixed on you the author and finisher of our faith.  

So one glorious day we can see you Jesus, and hold our loved ones again, and maybe perhaps someday Lord you will show me how to make your rainbows. Oh, how I love you Lord!!

Blessings