Encouragement Post - Coronavirus Distancing Day 51 (Friday)

Encouragement Post – Day #51 (Friday) - I can hardly believe that my song list now has over 50 songs!! We have heard an awful lot of talk about freedom lately. And while it has long been a value in our country, we get it wrong so often. What is real freedom? Is it having no boundaries at all and being allowed to do whatever you want to… any whim at any moment? If that were freedom, then the people who go around killing people would ostensibly be living in freedom. In actuality, being subject to the whims of our sinful fleshly desires is utter bondage. We see that bondage played out on a large scale daily as people give in to those desire and wreck their own lives or the lives of others.

Jesus knew what true freedom would mean to us. While here on earth, He lived in total submission to the Father, while being entirely free to do what He desired. These two were one and the same. He desired to do the Father’s will so much that He CHOSE the cross. He was free not to, but He chose it for us because He KNEW it would set us free. Now, because of the cross, as we surrender to Him we find out what true freedom really is. It is abundant life, peace that passes understanding, victory over the bondage of sin, and joy that is unspeakable.

“It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.” – Galatians 5:1

“For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” – 1 Corinthians 1:18

Update – again thanks SO very much to all who prayed for me. I am significantly better, with just a little twinge of discomfort here and there… day 4 of antibiotics and VERY thankful!!

Encouragement Post - Coronavirus Distancing Day 50 (Thursday)

Encouragement Post – Day #50 (Thursday) Today is the National Day of Prayer in our nation. In my lifetime, at least that I can recall, there has never been a more desperate time in our nation for the need of God’s hand to move. Amazingly, God has given us a formula for praying for our nation even in our current situation right in His Word. We are pointed once again to the verses in 2 Chronicles 7:13-14 “If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among My people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.” As His people, these are conditions that we must meet for the healing of our land: humility, prayer, seeking His face, and turning from our wicked ways. 

Jesus echoed this by His example (Philippians 2:5-11), “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

Lord, please heal our land.

Encouragement Post - Coronavirus Distancing Day 48 (Wednesday)

Encouragement Post #49 - First of all, thank you all for your prayers! I am definitely better today. I love this Psalm and it has really been on my mind today for some reason... maybe it's for you.

Psalm 63
1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;
My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,
In a dry and weary land where there is no water.
2 Thus I have seen You in the sanctuary,
To see Your power and Your glory.
3 Because Your lovingkindness is better than life,
My lips will praise You.
4 So I will bless You as long as I live;
I will lift up my hands in Your name.
5 My soul is satisfied as with marrow and fatness,
And my mouth offers praises with joyful lips.

6 When I remember You on my bed,
I meditate on You in the night watches,
7 For You have been my help,
And in the shadow of Your wings I sing for joy.
8 My soul clings to You;
Your right hand upholds me.
9 But those who seek my life to destroy it,
Will go into the depths of the earth.
10 They will be delivered over to the power of the sword;
They will be a prey for foxes.
11 But the king will rejoice in God;
Everyone who swears by Him will glory,
For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped.

Encouragement Post - Coronavirus Distancing Day 23 (Tuesday)

Encouragement Post – Day #23 (Tuesday) This is a beautiful song of the cross, written a good number of years ago now by Babbie Mason… what a gifted artist! This song is so, so beautiful in its truth and in its art. “Whenever I resist it, I am not at rest. It hovers there inviting me to be a humble guest. I need it daily, this I know. So, with my selfish tears in tow and with my fighting fears I go to the cross.”

A perfect meditation for Holy Week…

To the Cross
by Babbie Mason

A place inside my spirit
Beckons from a hill
Sometimes I choose to visit
Sometimes against my will
I take the long and sloping road
As though I hear some rooster crow
And driven by a prayer I go
To the cross

Whenever I resist it
I am not at rest
It hovers there inviting me
To be a humble guest
I need it daily this I know
So with my selfish tears in tow
And with my fighting fears I go
To the cross

And there I lay them down
For the Savior's love
Because He gave His flawless life
I take it up

And so I will determine
This cross to be my friend
And I will bear it in my heart
Until my pride is dead
Part of me will tell it no
But Christ was there before me so
I'll follow faithfully and go
To the cross
I'll follow faithfully and go
To the cross

Encouragement Post - Coronavirus Distancing Day 22 (Monday)

Encouragement Post – Day #22 (Monday) Knees To the Earth … I owe my life to You, my Lord. Here I am.
 
” Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints.” Ephesians 6:13-18

Knees To the Earth
by Watermark (Christy Nockels)

Wonderful Savior
My heart belongs to Thee
I will remember always the blood You shed for me
Wonderful Savior
My heart will know Your worth
So I will embrace You always as I walk this earth

Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here
Be glorified
I owe my life to You my Lord
Here I am
Beautiful Jesus
How may I bless Your heart?
Knees to the earth I bow down to everything You are

Beautiful Jesus
You are my only worth
So let me embrace You always as I walk this earth
Be blessed, be loved, be lifted high
Be treasured here
Be glorified
I owe my life to You my Lord
Here I am

Encouragement Post - Coronavirus Distancing Day 19 (Friday)

Encouragement Post – Day #19 (Friday) Today has been a long day, but I finally finished a project I have been working on for a long time. I am really thankful to have it finished, and I am looking forward to the next one now. Do you ever just get stuck? Like you just can’t move forward for fear of messing up? In “life” this doesn’t happen to me very often, but sometimes it does with art projects. But today I had someone tell me they were praying for me and gave me words of encouragement that I could do it. And that is exactly what happened. I am thankful for encouragement, and I want to pass that along to you. Whatever you are doing, working on, trying to accomplish… I am praying that God would show you the way, and I believe you can do it!

Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen."

I am continuing to pray for our community, our nation, and our world. May God intervene in this process and give wisdom to those who are making decisions. HE IS able! To Him be the glory in (us) the church in Christ Jesus to ALL generations forever and ever.

Clinging to hope...

So sorry for the lack of communication about Riley... several of you have asked about him privately. (You know who you are and that means the world to me!)  Really, there is nothing new to report.  After two weeks in the hospital where his condition did not improve, his mom chose to take him home to die unless the Lord answers our prayers for a miracle of healing.  My step-father spent a good deal of time with him yesterday and said that his communication was at a minimum, with "yes" "no" and "I don't know."  When he asked him what his name was, he said, "I don't know." It is heartbreaking and yet the family still continues to be so thankful that there is a sense of the nearness of the Lord's presence as they walk this difficult valley.  Clinging to these words and taking hold of the sure and steadfast hope, "In the same way God, desiring even more to show to the heirs of the promise the unchangeableness of His purpose, interposed with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have taken refuge would have strong encouragement to take hold of the hope set before us. This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, a hope both sure and steadfast and one which enters within the veil..."

Psalm 23

(beautiful words of truth for dark times)

The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want. 

He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters. 

He restores my soul;
He guides me in the paths of righteousness
For His name’s sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You have anointed my head with oil;
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Teeth, teeth, teeth... and a Public Service Announcement

Well friends, I guess I can officially just chalk this up to getting old. When I first went to the dentist back in NOVEMBER!, I had been having some really painful issues with the nerves along my lower jaw line. Usually I could knock it out with a few ibuprofen (Advil) and some heat on it. But, it had gotten consistent enough that I knew I needed to see someone about it. My dentist did x-rays, looked at things, had her technician clean my teeth, and was ready to dismiss me as "nothing really wrong" when her technician spotted a very small 5th wisdom tooth on the x-ray (I had never heard of anyone having a 5th wisdom tooth) sitting up in my gumline just above my other wisdom tooth on the same side that I had been having nerve pain, but in the top instead of the bottom. Well, I had also been experiencing shooting pains in that area on top when biting down on that tooth, so I decided maybe that was the cause of what I was experiencing with the nerve pain in the lower jaw, too. (photo above right: The tech let me take a photo of my x-rays with my phone.) In addition to this, I had also had a tooth extracted six months earlier on the other side of my mouth, for which I needed to see the oral surgeon about an implant. So, I decided to kill the proverbial two birds with one stone and have both the implant done and the wisdom teeth extracted. And, that is how I ended up having this done three weeks before Christmas.

I recovered beautifully from both procedures with very little need for pain medication other than ibuprofen. I was very thankful for this and hopeful that this would be the end of tooth pain. And for a while it was. Fast forward to one week ago... I began to experience further jaw pain, but this time NOTHING would knock it out... 2 ibuprofen, 3 ibuprofen, 4... not a smidgen of relief. I would put a heating pad on it, and it would ease a little but not significantly. I was perplexed because the dentist had not seen anything else suspicious going on with other teeth, so I was stymied about what to do. I began to pray for wisdom from the Lord because the pain continued to get worse and worse, but I could not pinpoint where it was coming from.

Well, on Sunday I received an answer to my prayers when the pain just really intensified and collected in one spot under one tooth. I have never really wanted an answer to prayer to be THAT painful, but it was probably the most pain I have ever experienced (and it was relentless) with the exception of childbirth. After going to two dentists, I ended up in the chair again yesterday for a root canal. Apparently I had a large abscess under that particular tooth that had been festering for a while. The doc who did the root canal said it was huge and no wonder I was in so much pain. He said that an abscess can cause the roots to radiate pain all up and down the jawline, usually staying on one side of the face and rarely crossing over to the other.

The PSA part of this is HOUND YOUR DENTIST if you are experiencing anything like this. My dentist just looked on the surface, saw nothing in particular, and dismissed me (until the tech saw the 5th wisdom tooth). She also didn't seem terribly interested in helping me figure it out. I am not thrilled about that and about the fact that what I went in for originally was not ever even diagnosed by her. I wish I had hounded her further, even though she was dismissive originally (basically telling me I had "self-diagnosed" with trigeminal neuralgia). Nope, I just knew that there was a problem and was trying to get help for it.

Today I am very sore and very thankful to have this issue resolved. And, I am simply worn out from fighting the pain. After a month of dealing with this, I hope to NEVER have another issue like this again. And I wish the same for you! 

Irving Berlin said it well...

Just sent off the latest commissioned piece...

I just shipped out my latest commissioned piece -- the one I mentioned that the groom is giving to his bride for a wedding present.  I can't wait to share it with you, as it was such fun!  But since it is a super secret surprise, it will have to wait until after the lovely bride has laid eyes on it...

I wanted to give you a little peek into my drawing room and table. I have a few commissioned pieces that I could share since I last posted about them on this blog, but here is one that was a pleasure to do.  It is on our local historical register and the current owners purchased the home in the 1970s.  This house turned 100 years old in 2015.

I thought I would share the process for this one.  It is pretty much how I work on all my commissioned pieces.  Here is the original photo that I was sent by the person who commissioned the drawing.

Original photo:

This is the first step (below) in how I work, lightly laying in the beginning sketch.  This is really the crucial point of the drawing and sometimes the longest step, as I must get the perspective right, the house straight, all the angles relating to the horizon correctly, etc.  There is a lot of sketching and erasing happening in this step! ;)

Once I am satisfied that the house looks correct from all angles (and doesn't look like it's falling over to one side or the other) and is proportionally correct (the porch isn't too large for the house, the steps are proportional to the door, the windows aren't too large or small, etc.) I can begin to fill in details.  This is where the fun takes over. 

 

Filling in details is about texture, shading, and all the architectural nuances that make a house a house... the boards on the wall next to the windows, the stonework on the porch, the little architectural details under the eaves, etc. When filling in, I work as much as possible from left to right and top to bottom, as the graphite will smear while I am working (right-handed) and rubbing back and forth over the areas.  I also use a piece of parchment to cover areas that I have already filled in, so that they are protected from my (very active) hand and arm.

 

Some of the most challenging details about some houses are the windows, especially if the surrounding trim and wood is white, as the ones on either side of the front door here.  It is difficult to get the panes all uniform and straight lines without distorting the white trim around them because the white part is the negative space.  It's much easier if the trim is darker than the panes.

I loved doing this house because there were so many different textures and features. It is really amazing to me how much this makes me appreciate what architects do.  To think this beautiful thing was designed and built in 1915 and is still so beautifully standing and giving shelter to this family today just amazes me.

With all of the house finished except the roof, I get to thinking about the landscape.  I have to be sure that the house is covered with parchment during this step because this when my fingers fly.  Shrubs and grasses and trees and flowers are a lot of fun.  As you have probably gathered by now, I really enjoy doing these.  I am thankful that people continue to ask me to do them, and each one is unique and special.  And so we've made our way back to where this post started, the finished product...


 

One thing that I do while I draw is pray for the families who are represented by the homes... those who live there, those who have lived there and have moved on, those who are giving the gift to the ones who live or lived there.  It is a privilege to be able to touch a family in this way. This is just a little taste of my commissioned work, but I also still love to paint and take the opportunity to "play with color" in between my commissioned drawings.

Wednesday blessings,