Katy Rose Collection: Art, Words
Hope’s Power
I gave this art print to one of my friends who just graduated from the residential recovery program for trafficked women. It’s called ‘Hopeful’ and there is so much hope for her in Christ, so much strength He has given her to move forward in freedom. For the last couple of years, in the art class I teach, she created with intensity and passion! It has been a joy to watch. Hope is a powerful thing.
“We know that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces HOPE, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
The name for this print is based on the above verse from Romans 5 which deeply encouraged me through a rough season.
Prints are available in my Shop. See the link below.
A Mother’s Day Prayer
The Liturgy for Unseen Labors began taking shape on the living room floor early in motherhood. I sat there with two small babies in a dated rental house in a new town, far from the job I’d just left in New York City. I was grateful but exhausted, and beginning to understand that all the exhaustion-producing work would not earn any recognition in a staff meeting or annual review.
But then, right there on the floor, something hit me. God, if in your presence is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11), then JOY can be here, even in this. True, deep, exhilarating joy! Joy was not dependent on circumstances but on the Lord’s presence.
Suddenly, any job, whether it was over a kitchen sink or a computer keyboard, could be offered as worship. I prayed to see things differently– to be more captivated by His work all around me than captive to others’ approval or validation.
In the end, we all just want true joy, and that’s found in His presence.
Prayer excerpts from Every Moment Holy III, available on HERE.
Friday Hymn: My Father Watches Over Me
Around 1940, Russell and Darlene Deibler had the chance to leave Papua New Guinea before the oncoming enemy soldiers landed, but they chose to stay. They'd arrived years prior in order to share the love of Jesus and that’s where they would remain. They were soon captured and forced to march through rugged country and into the jungle. Then Darlene watched as Russell was taken away. She and a few others almost starved in the jungle where they were held captive for months. Scavenging for food, they discovered a type of seed that, if cooked long enough, expanded and made their stomachs feel full.
As the jungle rain poured down, Darlene stirred and stirred that seed over the fire, singing at the top of her lungs words she'd learned as a child:
I trust in God, I know he cares for me,
On mountain bleak or on the stormy sea;
Though billows roll, he keeps my soul,
My heav'nly Father watches over me.
That hymn, My Father Watches Over Me, was written about 30 years before by a pastor named William Martin. Surely he would have been touched to see those words ringing out in such a moment.
Hymns and scripture provided sustaining comfort through Darlene’s harrowing journey, which only intensified in the coming months in a prison camp. Years later, recounting the horrific and miraculous stories, Darlene shared unrelentingly about the nearness of the Lord and the profound love she felt. She had memorized scripture as a girl and so, even though her Bible was taken, He comforted her constantly through His Word stored up in her heart.
In sharing her story with thousands of people in the years since, she said, “I thank God for every storm that has shipwrecked me on the Rock Christ Jesus. There I stand. “
I first heard Darlene Deibler Rose’s story about ten years ago through a staticy old recording (found here) and have since listened to it more times than I know, especially in challenging seasons of my own life. Perhaps, if you haven’t heard it before, it might encourage you too.
My Father Watches Over Me
Words by William Clark Martin, USA 1864-1914
sources: “Evidence Not Seen" by Darlene Deibler Rose
Hymnary: My Father Cares For Me