Twenty-third Psalm Painting

Psalm 23:4

I mentioned in my March 6th blog the way I paint looks differently now.

I used to paint lots of pet portraits, still life and landscapes. And I still love those subjects and love to paint them, but God has been showing me a different way of painting. I’m not entirely sure how to describe what I see that He’s showing me, but it’s abstract pictures I see in my mind whenever I’m reading scripture or listening to worship music. I shared a little bit about it with my Isaiah 41:13 painting. The Lord has also shown me something when reading the 23rd Psalm — particularly verse four.

This May 16th will be three years since Jim went to be with the Lord. As that date approaches, I have noticed I’m feeing “heavier” for lack of a better description. I started feeling that way back in April — almost a month before the actual anniversary of Jim’s death. I think part of that feeling is the memories from this time three years ago of how horrible Jim’s cancer was — especially during his last days. It was heartbreakingly brutal on him, and devastating for our family to watch. We absolutely walked through the valley of the shadow of death with Jim.

It wasn’t until a few months ago that the Lord began showing me the “valley of the shadow of death” in my mind. Through worship songs and studying His word, I pictured that valley — where hope is lost, dreams are shattered, futures are spoiled. It’s broken and shattered. But you know what? We don’t stay in that valley of death and destruction according to Psalm 23:4. David states in this verse what he knows to be true of the Lord — “even though I walk THROUGH the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil for YOU ARE WITH ME.” Two hopeful promises — we walk THROUGH, which means we don’t live there, and the Lord is WITH us as we go through it.

This brings SO MUCH HOPE. We are not alone even in the very worst times of our lives. In all the heartache I went through, the Lord was walking with me through it all. He is with me, was always with me, will always be with me.

So — the painting. In my mind I saw the valley of the shadow of death — broken, chaotic, dark. But on both sides of this valley there is light because it wasn’t always death and it won’t always be death. The line through the valley from light into the valley back into light is the path — where I walked before, during and after. The metallic gold represents the Holy Spirit who was always with me — even in the worst moment of my life.

The painting depicts hope even in the midst of despair. I hope and pray that you grow deeply in your relationship with the Lord who will never leave you or forsake you — who will always hold your right hand and walk with you THROUGH the darkest valley.

All glory to the Lord who loves me forever and ever.

God Heard Me!

The last week of April 2021 is the final family vacation we took together. My husband Jim and I decided to go on this vacation with our two adult sons, Hayden and Jordan, even though Jim was battling Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. The time there was bittersweet because Jim didn’t feel like doing any of the fun things with us, but in the early evening hours each day, he made a special effort to spend time with us as a family. I will never forget him doing that with us.

One of the mornings while we were there, I had been walking along the beach thinking of how my world was going to come crashing down at some point in the next few months if God didn’t miraculously heal Jim. Trying to imagine a life without Jim was impossible because I had been with him since the 10th grade. I was praying a lot on these lonely sunrise and sunset walks asking God to be with me because I really didn’t know how I was going to keep going without Jim. A few nights before there had been a particularly beautiful sunset and God brought these words from the Psalms to my heart:

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14

I felt like this was a promise from God in the middle of my despair. Even though Jim was dying, I was still living, and God was telling me I was going to see His goodness if I would wait on Him.

Fast forward to two days later. I was sitting upstairs in the bedroom beside the bed where Jim was laying. I opened my email to find a request for a commission from someone I didn’t know. Many times I have received commission requests from people I don’t know that have turned out to be scams, but there was something different about this request. It intrigued me enough to consider it and ask my family their opinion about responding to it. We agreed that it wouldn’t hurt to respond just to see what could come of it. 

Within a short period of time, I received a reply stating the person who was inquiring about the painting would like to give me a call to talk to me about painting something for his family. The person who wanted to call me was Dayton Moore, who at the time was the General Manager of the Kansas City Royals. I gave his assistant my phone number and she said he would call me later that day.

Something in me still wondered if this was truly real or if it was someone pretending to be a person I had heard of. I didn’t think much more about it. We had lunch, then the boys and I went out to the beach while Jim rested. 

I spent so much time on the beach praying for Jim’s healing, praying for the awful journey we were going through, praying for strength to make it day to day that I totally missed the phone call from Mr. Moore. I’m not usually a bold person, but when I saw on my phone that I missed a call from him, God gave me the boldness to call him right back, and he answered.

I apologized that I missed his call and told him what was going on. We talked for a bit and I could tell he was a man of God and that God had orchestrated this conversation between us. We talked about what he wanted me to paint and agreed to follow up all details with his wife, who is a precious woman of God and someone I have gotten to know better throughout the painting of the commission.

The Moores commissioned a painting of their son Robert, who at the time played second base for the Arkansas Razorbacks baseball team. One night earlier that year he had hit for the cycle — meaning in one game he hit a single, a double, a triple, and a home run. This is quite an accomplishment and the Moores wanted me to capture that in a painting. As big Razorback fans, of course my family and I had seen this game and we were so excited to be part of this wonderful moment in their lives.  Jim was incredibly excited for me! Unfortunately, Jim never saw the completed painting as I delivered the painting to the Moores after Jim passed away. However, he was able to witness in very real ways how God would take care of me after he was gone.

I was in contact with Marianne Moore throughout the painting process but when I went to deliver the painting, Marianne and Dayton were both there. I had been curious why, out of all the people Dayton could have asked to paint such a monumental moment in their son’s baseball career, why they asked me to paint for them. I’ll never forget Dayton telling me that he actually found me on Twitter because I commented on one of Robert’s baseball posts, and he saw that I was a Christian and an artist and thought I would be the right person to paint for them.

And there it was again —“I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” God was showing up. My Heavenly Father saw my desperate cry as I was losing the love of me life and all the fear and uncertainty that came with that. He saw me and He assured me that He was still with me and would continue to be with me. He assured me that I could trust Him with all things and that He would never leave me or forsake me.

All glory to God forever and ever!

Contemplating Always

“Contemplating Always” - finished painting

Last October I had the opportunity to attend a workshop of one of my favorite oil painters - Anne Blair Brown. I started following her work several years ago, took an online class of hers, and finally had the chance to take a workshop taught by her last October at her beautiful Bluebird Hill Farmhouse in Tennessee. The workshop fell during the time I was in the thick of painting Holy Spirit Doves to raise money for the Wesley Ministry and taking commissions for Christmas gifts, so I didn’t have a chance to practice all the amazing things I learned from her until a couple weeks ago.

What I love so much about her painting style is her expressive brushstrokes, use of color and value, and ability to tell a story without painting every little fussy detail. Her paintings draw me in.

I want to share with you the complete process of my painting: drawing simple shapes, drawing with values, notan, distinct colors with gouache, practice in small oil, then finished product.

Above is my finished painting “Contemplating Always” painted in oil on 8x8 linen panel.

Simple shapes of the two small objects on a small plate on a small table

More detailed drawing of values and notes of specifics highlights and colors

Notan - Japanese technique of drawing the balance between dark and light in the subject matter

Gouache sketch figuring out some colors/values

Oil sketch playing with color and values

True HOPE during COVID-19

COVID-19.

As I search for a sentence to follow that, I’m blank. What do I say?

Everyone is talking about it or trying to forget about it. It’s all over social media. At times, I find myself wanting to practice social distance from everything vying for my attention on all media outlets, especially now. BUT, I have noticed a ribbon of hope in some messages out there. it’s this:

“I pray that God, the source of HOPE, will fill you completely with joy and peace because you trust in Him. Then you will overflow with confident HOPE through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Romans 15:13

Last summer when I was considering my next painting series, God put this verse on my heart. It’s actually a verse my husband Jim prayed for me and our boys. I wanted to pray this verse and paint a dove as a representation of the Holy Spirit. I knew I was taking a risk with something that was more overtly Christian than the hearts I painted last year; however, I felt like God placed that verse on my heart.

So I wrote that verse on every dove painting before I painted it and prayed that verse for the people who would receive it — all 75 of them.

When you write something and pray something that many times, you begin to internalize it. And I did. I began writing it from memory, pretty early on. I wrote it and prayed it in a cadence like this:

I pray that God,

the source of HOPE,

will fill you completely with

JOY and PEACE

because you trust in HIM.

THEN you will overflow with

CONFIDENT HOPE

through the power of the

HOLY SPIRIT.

I underlined “because you trust in HIM” and I circled “THEN.” I wanted to really study this verse to see our part — trusting Him — and what happened as a result of our trusting — overflowing with confident hope.

My prayer is that you will memorize and pray this verse, or another verse that God lays on your heart, during this time of social distancing and that you keep up that practice when things return to normal. Break it down, look at what it all means. Read it in context. Let God, through the Holy Spirit, speak to you through his Word. Don’t let any of this isolation or destruction be wasted on things that don’t matter but instead seek God and spend time with Him, growing in your relationship with Him, so that you may share the Good News of Christ to a world that so desperately needs it.

*** Please know, before I wrote this blog, I prayed for all of you who would read it. ***