What will we do...

It's so funny how as parents we really DO reflect ourselves on to our children. So many parents talk about it and then apologize for it, but really I mean... they are watching our every move, listening to our every word, and being shaped moment by moment into the people they will become. And because Kehnley sees me painting and making art so much she naturally wants to do it all the time!! I have a friend who's son LOVES to sing and play the guitar... i mean everything he picks up can magically turn into a microphone... well i make since considering the two of them are musicians and vocalists! So spring break, when i had a lot of time o spend with my darling I let her have what she had been asking for "paints... paints!" Who knows if she will be an artist or a lover of math ( heaven forbid!) or a Jamie of all trades... whatever she will BE she already is, it just hasn't been found out yet. On thing I KNOW for sure is that she will be extraordinary in whatever she does.

she would dip her brush in the paint...

then carefully brush the paper...

now she's really getting into it!

Every good artist needs a snack while they work...

this is no starving artist.

We hung the painting up in her room... I will post a pic of that soon. She wakes up in the morning and I hear "wow... oh, wow! on the monitor, I go in and she is pointing at her picture, so proud.

So So Good

Some other things happened over the month of March that had nothing to do with Spring Break and making my kitchen one big chalkboard or butterfly museums or shopping sprees or naps with my sweet girl.... God did something amazing and let me of all people be a part of it.

First Wednesday references the First Wednesday of every month where my church holds a service for members and anyone else who want to get an extra dose of the Lord in a very intimate way and it's a time for those that serve on Sunday's to have a time where THEY are fed. I was asked to do a painting, well three paintings burring the Lord's Supper service for the first Wednesday of April, right before this Easter weekend. I couldn't have been more blessed by it. If you know me at all, this is what I feel I have been put on Earth to do, one of my many tasks and it's to show God's love to the world through images and anything my hand can make as an artist. It's one of my most rewarding gifts, one that I am most passionate about. You know when you are looking for the perfect tool for something and you have tried all these other makeshift tools to do the job and they may get it done but you have to work REALLY hard at it.... until you FINALLY find the right tool and it just goes so easily and takes the work out of it for you and it's like they were made for each other? Well... for me... this is how I feel when I get to be a part of something like this past Wednesday's service.

Being on the stage and sharing the images of Christ on the cross with an audience isn't really what I thought about, it wasn't performance art... it was truly an act of worship for me. It's what I was made for.

Before I went out to paint for the next 55 minutes I prayed and asked God to bless the people there, bless Pastor David as he spoke, bless the band and the singers and to show me what He wanted me to do and to let it all work out, I was a little nervous about finishing 3 paintings 6x6 ft. in 55 minutes... but I was trying to just trust Him. I prayed God, what do want to say to me, i feel like I am talking and you really just want to tell me something... quiet my heart and speak to me. in my soul I heard " just be with me"

I asked again thinking it was in my own head... He spoke again, "just be with me". If you have experienced God speaking to you it's not audible as you would imagine BUT VERY audible in the sense that you hear His voice.... you know it's Him. I started to cry feeling like I didn't deserve such a request and I wanted to hide my face ashamed of how distracted I had been in the weeks prior and even in the midst of my prayer... but I needed to go on stage in a few minutes so I wiped my face and stood up.

During the next hour I just listened to God, sang to Him, heard His word through David,thought about the cross, thought about the gift, the blood, the way it must have felt, the Hurt God must have had, the people seeing this, spitting on Him, hitting Him, the moment He felt His Father had left Him, what Jesus' mother was thinking, the disciples, the cup, the betrayal, my sin, my fault, my need, my love, His grace, Heaven, His hands, His feet, His side, the wounds.... forgiveness, mercy, sovereignty, everything seams so small in light of Him, thank you God, don't let me forget, don't let me wash over this, burn the image of the cross on my heart that I might always remember what You gave.

"But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that borough us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.

We all like sheep have gone astray, each has turned his own way and the Lord has laid on Him the inequity of us all." Isaiah 53:5-6

To a lost world, these images are just a gruesome, overdone, over depicted look at something that happened thousands of years ago... to us who believe, it's a beautiful sight at love to the highest measure. Have a wonderful Easter and remember why we call today good Friday.

On to new things...

The fasting is over, and just to clarify why there was a fast in the first place- I had some soul searching to do and I was kind of distracted by a lot things in my life and so I cut all the extras out for a month. I have a lot that has changed in my life because of it and I am so grateful.

There were things that I was praying for the future and actually something really unexpected happened... God didn't answer those prayers, but He changed my mind. He changed my faith in Him and He increased my trust in Him and my joy in the process. It's been really amazing to see gratitude and contentment take up residence in my heart like I have never known. It's a new and deeper kind of satisfaction as if I am living each day like all my greatest and most heartfelt prayers HAVE been answered just like I had asked them... that's what hope is... that's what faith is... and I am JUST now learning all this.

That fact makes me a little sad that it's something I have heard and heard but never resonated in my soul. Now it's there and I have added to it forgiveness.

Forgiveness of myself, my past, my blunders, others' choices and scars left on my heart, and even the things that are to come.

The final thing that God has shaped and molded into me in the past thirty days is a desire to have controlled emotions and thoughts.... all aligning with this one verse.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praise worthy-- think about such things." Phill. 4:8

We are talking a total overhaul of thinking here, this means no negative thought or word... NOT ONE! about yourself or anything or anyone else for that matter. It's simple to grasp, hard to break, and life changing to the core because it challenges every habit we have been implementing since our existence in this world. It completely contradicts the things the world has been telling us all our lives.... and yet isn't that what we know and should be working against?

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but BE TRANSFORMED, by the RENEWING of your mind. THEN you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2

It's kind of hard to talk about all the things I have heard and seen from the Lord. But I will take my time in trying to share it all with you.

Just to give you an idea, here is an expert from a letter I wrote Bry and a few people about this new endeavour with Christ:

It’s begun in me a new movement in just trusting in Him and following after Him with passion and purpose… not wandering aimlessly about the feet of Christ but walking in step with Him and letting him hold my hand. How much we are like little children with Christ… fighting limits and distracted and uncoordinated and yet He patently, lovingly holds out His hand saying, “hang on, I will guide you”… I am tired of tripping ahead, it’s time I take hold of Him

There is so much more to share but that sums it up... some of you were expecting to here news that we have another baby on the way, well we HAVE another baby.

And you know me...I can't post without pics, so here are his first pics

Meet Bear Blowey :) Bry's new BFF!

Feb Fast Vol. 3!

Delightful weekend... I hosted a table at the lady's Delight
Dinner at my church. You choose a scripture to base your
table off of and then you can invited friends or have open
spots to let ladies come and eat dinner and then we have
a time of worship and a speaker. A lot of the men at the
church serve the meal. It's always a really great night to
fellowship and grow and just see some cool creative women
at their best! Well, it was something I have done the past
three years ad this year I had my verse decided early. It's
Isaiah 43:18 "Forget the former things, do not dwell in the
past. See I am doing a new thing, don't you see it? I am
making streams in the wastelands and rivers in the desert."

My table had a marshmallow tree in the middle and real
sticks and daisies and a kind of an outdoor pic-nick feel to it.
I was really excited to share this verse with so many of my
good friends who were able to come. I wanted to encourage
them with what I felt God was sharing with me... to keep my
mind focused on the future hope I have in Christ and not on
things that are behind me. God can make something out of
nothing and He has given me great joy to keep trusting in
the future. I learned from the speaker that night, Jeanette
Cliff George: who is ridiculously funny and confident in her
imperfections.... that God has very different but grander
plans for our lives than we can imagine... not a new concept,
but one that in different seasons of life can mean new and
wonderful things. Here are some images from that night...

The Next morning I was able to experience an awesome thing....I had a chance to run with my two all time favorite running buddies Jen and Ans. It was a really casual fun run. The rodeo 5k actually. I had a great time and was GENUINELY shocked to see Bry and Kehnley

and Terry a few blocks from the finish line... this face is REALLY in shock!!

Of course we had to get our post-run snack on, pics with the fans and a tumble in on Kehnley's fav. public art hangout in Houston...

There's a Fast February for you, it sure flew by!