Every day in February, I will be making a painting. That's right. 28 days, 28 paintings, 28 days of D E L I G H T.
I started this last year amidst a busier schedule. The goal is to make something for the pure delight of making it and foster the discipline to paint something every day. I so enjoyed it last year that this year I am amping it up as my schedule allows for more time and concentration to be on each painting. I would love to have you follow along with me this year. The Lord knows I need people to spur me on. Be sure to follow me on social media, but most importantly, SUBSCRIBE to my newsletter to see everything and be entered to win prizes every Friday.
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To read more about my current musings:
I know that this process is a deeply personal one for me. Art imitates faith. I don't know exactly what is going to happen when I start something like this, but I am asking the Lord to guide me. First, I want to delight in Jesus. I hope that I will trust Him to fill me each day that I might pour out something. You will see some wins and some failures this month, but I'm sure God will be doing some of his perfecting of my faith through this process. And you will get to enjoy some of the external processing.
"...let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the Lord..." Jeremiah 9:24
Lately, I have been learning a lot about God's everlasting love. I am daily reminded of the depths of my sin (y'all read Romans 7 + 8 lately?), and I am trusting the Lord to help me be cleansed of all that comes with that yucky stuff. He is leading me through repentance, belief, and action. He deals with each of us according to our needs. He knows I am sensitive and prone to worry. He is gentle and showing me there is no need to worry.
I started reading "Fear and Trembling" by Kierkegaard last night. He imagines what Abraham might have thought or done in that three day journey to Mount Moriah and philosophically and poetically comments on the marvel of true faith. Halfway through, I am stunned by the simplicity and complexity of the story of Abraham's faith when asked to sacrifice his only long awaited son. His three day journey of knowing what he had to do, his trust of God, and his absolute obedience to what God had said to do. Does that sounds like any other story we know? It points us to the Father and the Son. Jesus provided the perfect sacrifice for us, folks. He's the only true "Knight of Faith". Johannes de silentio (John of the Silence) is the voice of Kierkegaard in this book who cannot get past the word, FAITH, and how difficult it is to find a man (or a knight) of true faith. "...such a knight of faith...he has this confidence to delight in it as if it were the most certain thing in the world...the majority of people live absorbed in worldly sorrow and joy. They are wallflowers who do not join in the dance. The knights of infinity are dancers and have ELEVATION. They make the upward movement and drop down again, and this too is not an unhappy pasttime nor unlovely to behold. But every time they drop down they cannot assume the posture at once; they hesitate an instant, and this hesitation shows they are really strangers in this world...but even the most skillful of these knights still cannot hide this hesitation..."
"Not only in the commercial world but in the realm of ideas as well, our age is holding a veritable clearance sale. Everything is had so dirt cheap that it is doubtful whether in the end anyone will bid...in our age nobody stops at faith but goes further...I will never forget that in a hundred and thirty years you (talking to Abraham) got no further than faith..."
I think his questioning of faith-what we so quickly jump over to achieve something more- is transcendent to this present day.
I would love to get to the end of my life and know that I had one thing--saving faith. Those of you who know me pretty well know that I want one thing on my gravestone (a morbid but semi-regular thing I think about and have edited in my life several times. I think I got it down now.)
"She trusts Jesus."
God help me. Here goes nothing! Thank you for reading and being a part of my story.
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"If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin. Even though the result may gladden the whole world, that cannot help the hero; for he knows the result only when the whole thing is over, and that is not how he became a hero, but by virtue of the fact that he began." Soren Kierkegaard
Sincerely,
Sarah