Create with Contentment

This inspired me when we lived in a 250 sq foot apartment in the city, and still does today:⁠

“It seems to me that whether it is recognized or not, there is a terrific frustration which increases in intensity and harmfulness as time goes on, when people are always daydreaming of the kind of place in which they would like to live, yet never making the place where they do live into anything artistically satisfying to them. Always to dream of a cottage by a brook while never doing anything to the stuffy house in the city is to waste creativity in this very basic area, and to hinder future creativity by not allowing it to grow and develop through use." ⁠

― Edith Schaeffer, The Hidden Art of Homemaking

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.

Hopeful - Fine Art Giclee Print

from $32.00

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 HERE.