New Life

I usually don't paint people- they are less forgiving if a nose is too long, or eyes too far apart. But I am a few weeks away from gving birth to our second child, a son. I'm emmersed in motherhood. I was sitting at my midwife's office and decided I wanted to give them a painting but my landscapes didn't seem appropriate. I wanted to show the reward at the end of pregnancy, bonding with your new baby.

Oaks of righteousness

One more painting to go along with the series for Isaiah 61. "They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor." How I want God to plant me, to put me in a place where I display his strength.

Isaiah series

The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me,
Because the LORD has anointed me
To bring good news to the afflicted;
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to captives,
And freedom to prisoners;

To grant those who mourn in Zion,
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
The oil of gladness instead of mourning,
The mantle of praise instead of a spirit of fainting
So they will be called oaks of righteousness,
The planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified.

Isaiah 61: 1,3

In effort to try and get this scripture into my head and heart I've started a series of sketches depicting some of these things. I was encouraged in my reading to see that when Jesus read scripture at the temple and said this has been fulfilled in your time it was this passage. He is a healer and comforter, restorer.

It had been months since touching my oil pastels. I just felt uninspired. I needed fresh material to paint, yet I think I would've stalled even if I had some great landscape scenes. I felt like God was calling me to trust him to do something different. To venture beyond my normal subject matter of landscapes to something more personal. It struck fear in me as I wondered if I would fall on my face. But I waited and eventually got an impression, an idea of what I was to attempt. I've been learning about faithfulness, mostly of God to bring about what he wants in our lives. And about fruitfulness, the idea of producing things of value like hope, joy, love, patience and other vitures in our lives. I wanted to see those kind of qualities in my life. So above is the result so far. I don't have a title yet, and will probably look to find some scriptures that speak to the theme. God impressed another concept in my head recently and so I set out again seeing if I can protray this mystery visually.