The Sunflower is the national symbol of Ukraine. I want to keep remembering our brother and sister Ukrainians. The wives, mothers and children have been sent as refugees to neighboring nations. The young men, husband’s and fathers must remain and fight. My heart and prayers go out to them.
The sunflower looks like one giant flower. But the whole center is made up of a multitude of tiny flowers that each produce a seed that can grow another huge sunflower.
Cooperating together to grow and develop our relationship with God and each other will produce great fruit. May we see eternal fruit from Ukraine.
It’s Spring. Well, almost. Winter is trying to hold on with another snow storm tonight. But its days are numbered. We see the green leaves beginning to break through the sod.
This year I wanted to paint purple crocus instead of yellow. This was a pretty quick study and very enjoyable. The stresses of these last two years has affected everyone living on earth. There isn’t a corner of this world not affected by things that have never been seen before. Do you feel like you have been buried under loads of confusion and speculation? Have you felt the chilling effects of fear? Have you tried by anger to push some of the clods out of the way?
Let’s enjoy the warming of our souls as much as our bodies in this Spring season. In this season God is stirring our hearts to look to Him and reach out to others. Consider ways you can spread the joy of new growth and color with your friends and family?
The outline for my first tangled bird was taken from an internet tangle someone else did. This was so much fun to fill with my own patterns.
This little bird looks like a sparrow outline to me. It reminds me of Psa. 84:3.
“Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow builds her nest and raises her young at a place near your altar, O LORD of Heaven’s Armies, my King and my God!”
I want to be like the sparrow. The sparrow doesn’t have a glorious song to sing or beautiful plumage to strut, but even the sparrow has a home with God! I want to stay close to God and snuggle into that safety and place of blessing. How about you?
I got my pen working again after a long time away. Tangles are similar to doodles. They are just whatever seems like a fun design to do. But unlike doodling, the idea is to make an outline design that is pleasing and then fill all the pieces with different patterns of inking. I got the idea for the outlines from an internet image, but the inside designs are just how I decided to fill them.
It reminded me of Psalm 16: 6, “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”
God has made designs for our life that please Him. He allows us to fill in the spaces. He wants us to fill them with good things, but even when we make a mistake, He redeems us for His pleasure.
While I was working on this orchid painting, Mike was struggling to take some very big concepts from Scripture and make them accessible to the congregation.
This is not the first time I have painted this orchid from the Anna Mason school. I have a book with beautiful photos of orchids. I was studying the central part in order to better paint it.
But, before I started to paint the flower, I had to paint the background. As I was finishing that part, I got a spot of water that washed away the color in a section and made a ‘bloom’ as watercolor artists call it. It took days of dabbing, drying, gentle washes and more texture to fix that one splash. Only then came the challenge of capturing the illusive beauty of these orchids.
Mike was having a similar problem with his preparation for preaching. The section is wonderfully rich with concepts and picturesque language for spiritual realities. He had to try to make it understandable to anyone hearing his message.
God’s creation is just too big, too tiny, too complex, and so simple all at the same time. Who God is and what He wants for us can be so hard to capture. Really, it is too hard for someone else to interpret it for you. The best we can say is, “Come and see!” See for yourself how glorious is His creation. See for yourself how personal and grand God is to you when you ask Him to show you.
