Making Divine Images Visable

Five pastel portraits from the summer of 2010. What do you do to recreate your spirit?

Have you noticed that many of the Psalms recite the history of the people of Israel? These hymns were used to remind the people of God’s action in their lives. Some of these Psalms are: 78, 105, 106, 114 and there are others.

I was challenged to write my own Praise History and to reread it often. I have found this to be a rich experience and I recommend it to you.

Here’s mine. What would yours be like?

For a long time I’ve been trying to figure out how to use painting and/or drawing to tell my story and the story of God’s action in my life. Here is a new way that I have done this recently.

If you have an audience and a large dry erase board, I have markers! Maybe we should get together.

(Note there where I wrote “Psalm 16:9″ I should have written “Proverbs 16:9.”)

Writing a personal version of the 23rd Psalm was assigned in Week Three of Disciple’s Prayer Life, a study many of us at First Baptist Church in College Station, Texas are doing this spring of 2010. T.W. Hunt who wrote the study guide was a seminary professor. His example begins, “The Lord is My Professor.” I have found the process of writing my own to be rich and fascinating. I recommend it to you.

David had been a shepherd so when he wrote about God he used imagery he knew. This week I was challenged to use the format of the 23rd Psalm and write a version using a title meaningful to me. I wrote more than one but here is “The Lord is my Master Artist.” How would you do this assignment to make it fit your life?

When Judson L. Moore was born in June of 1983, his older brother was twenty-two months old. His parents wondered how Judson would “do” with a brother who had severe health challenges.

A proud mother tells part of the story.

I think this is a fine sermon by any measure but, for me, the special thing is that it is the testimony of a parent whose child died. Lonnie says with the prophet Habakkuk, “YET I will rejoice in the Lord. I will be joyful in God, my Savior.”

If God seems far away or silent, read this.

I have had dreams of a romantic nature for at least forty years. The male romantic lead is almost never someone I know or someone I recognize: not someone from my real life or an actor or person whose face I would know. Sometimes the woman is not “me” but in this dream she was. What an amazing subconscious to create these people and these stories!

Do you work with your dreams?

I found this drawing in an old sketchbook. A “family portrait” of sorts, it was drawn at a stressful time in my life but I was blessed to be able to imagine a different future – a future I inhabit now!

I woke up with a powerful dream image in my mind. It was Lew in the arms of an angel. They were in water. She was supporting him and helping him to breathe. The dream was just that image but I made up a story about what happened before the picture and after it. Lew died ten days after the dream and a couple of weeks later I wrote this story.