Despite the weather (which I believe the devil had a hand in) the fellowship hall was packed. The decorations set the scene for the Christmas season and the faces of several beautiful women filled each chair. I felt blest to be able to simply be sitting in the same room as all of them. Most I knew personally but there were some ladies I had never seen before. The meal was delicious, worshiping in a room filled with woman is something that is dear to my heart, and it was finally time for me to let loose all that God had been preparing over the past year. This was my first time speaking in front of a group like this. I was honored, excited, and a bit nervous.
I have been watching my husband Jeremy preach for the past 9 years, so I have learned some of his tricks when speaking in front of people. I have also learnt from him the hard part of after you are done not knowing if anyone GOT it. Last night I had so much positive feedback I didn't have that feeling. Although I did have satin attacking me due to information I had wanted to say that wasn't said. We (believers) can say that was the Holy Spirit saying what He wanted to say in stead of me. Stupid satin, I hate him. How dare he try to take the glory in all this. No way, I am NOT letting you take the focus from God's glory that was done last night.
Since God decided to cut back some of what I had planned to say I would love to inform you of what wasn't said. It doesn't take away from what was said last night but it does further/build upon what was said. Did I say said enough there. LOL I was thinking back to what I remember saying and I left out a lot of the details about the actual art pieces. So here is where I would like to let you in on some cool tidbits of information regarding each one. And for those that weren't there last night you can see the pieces I presented.
I am an artist but I don't have all the time in world to do things perfectly, so I didn't photograph each piece in a perfect setting to capture it's true beauty. You are going to have to deal with what I was able to get with my iPhone camera on a fast fly through photo shoot of each piece. So here goes....
Mary Did You Know - All In - 1984
I placed the cross on this piece because the song is asking Mary if she knew her son would be the savior of all nations. Did she know that the little baby that she gave birth to would be the same man that would take the punishment for all of mankind's sins. The flowers made of fabric from my grams' quilt scraps, symbolize the many questions that we lay before God instead of just completely trusting His will for our lives. Mary had an "All In" type of faith. That is the type of faith I desire to have. One that doesn't question God but completely surrenders to His perfect will for my life, no matter what it takes to glorify Him.
Silent Night - All Is Calm, All Is Bright - 1818
The face of Mary in this piece came from a page in my personal hymnal. I didn't tear out the pace I simply took a picture of it so that the coloring would be original. Again the majority of the fabric came from my grams. This piece was done while I was watching television one night I was wanting to do the forms of Mary and Jesus. I am NOT a figure drawing artist so I was going with a more abstract way of drawing them. This is what I came up with and was actually quite pleased. After the show this piece seemed to be the highlight of the whole show. I believe it's because it looks the closest to what Silent Night traditionally would look like. My take on this piece came from the fact that this hymn was written due to the organ breaking down the night of the Christmas pageant, therefore God used a trial to bring glory to Himself. Whereas in our lives through our trials comes glory if we place our focus on Him.
Breath Of Heaven - Quilt - 1992
The top part of this piece resembles a quilt which is a thick protective covering (like Christ is for us) and the the bottom part is my take on how breath from Heaven would look like. Like the thread holds a quilt together, Christ holds us together/gives us what we need to survive any and all circumstances that we face in this nasty world.
The Little Drummer Boy - Enough - 1941
The heart at the top is a symbol of Christ's love for us during this christmas season. The fabric still being represented here due to my love for hymns coming from going to my Grams' church. The slice of tree trunk is a good way of showing how God loves our inner most parts. The nuts and bolts I placed through the fabric because of the saying "the nuts and bolts that keep us together". The mixed media flower was actually done during my college years in art school. I had to do a mixed media piece that looked as close to the reference picture I used as much as possible. I have wanted to use it for something ever since I made it but didn't know what. Then As I was finishing up this particular piece I was looking at it and realized it was lacking something. Then this college assignment caught my eye on my art table and I was so excited! It worked! I was able to use it because even when we as women put on a good face and make everyone around us believe we have it all together, God knows what's going on inside and loves us just as we are. For the things we see as failures He sees as His beautiful creation.
Oh Holy Night - Devine Love - 1847
I actually worked on this piece for quiet some time and scrapped the first canvas a week or two before the Women's Christmas Dinner. It was not working out. I was getting kind of nervous when Jeremy told me that I needed to just go into my art studio and paint. Not think about it and just enjoy what I was doing. So that is what I did and this is what happened. Simple is usually always better and that rang so true for this piece. The frame was a gift from my inlaws that I loved because of all the line detailing on it. The bow is homemade from my Grams' quilt scraps. The flower at the bottom is what I completely forgot to mention when I spoke yesterday. A single petal plays a part in making a flower. With each and every petal comes another layer that develops its true beauty. God uses each one of us women for His kingdom. We (women) need to stop putting each other down and start building each other up. Come together and have the relationships that we are destined to have. Stop comparing ourselves to one another and comparing how we do certain things. Respect one another for our likenesses in Christ and stop focusing on the differences He gave us. The focus should be placed on our Maker and not the fact that we aren't comfortable with how He made us. We are all beautiful and made in his image. Look at all of the different flowers He created for us to enjoy. Same goes for the shapes, sizes, colors and all other characteristics He gave His daughters.
To finish up this last piece I wanted to let you in on the back story of the scripture I placed on it. One day Emma and I went outside to play and she wanted to bring a bible. We did just that and forgot the bible outside. Well it rained that night and I completely forgot that we had left it out there until my husband brought it in. I felt horrible and tried my best over the next couple days to get it dried out. Despite my best efforts the bible molded on a couple pages. See this bible was the bible my mom bought me when I went off for college, so it is a little important to me. However I can't have a bible with mold in it. So as I was getting my scripture together for this piece I decided to look them up in my old college bible and found that I had (in college) underlined and circled the passages that I wanted to use for this piece. HOW COOL GOD!!!! So I asked Jeremy if it was okay for me to cut a passage out of a bible and he said go for it, and I did. Pretty cool how God puts things together. His plans are far greater than ours. His infinite knowledge is truly amazing.
Thank you for reading my blog and I hope and pray you are blessed by it. I am by no means an expert at writing or even english, even though it is the ONLY language I speak. But I want to be able to get what God is doing out there to anyone who is willing to read what I have to say.
In Christ's Love,
Randi
