After completing my painting about thirst, I sensed the Lord asking me to paint fire. Or more specifically, to walk through the fire. I wasn’t particularly happy. I started the project grudgingly, fighting against it every step of the way, trying to make it into something it wasn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, I love fire. Bonfires in the fall, soft dancing candles on a menorah… but walking through fire? The Lord kept speaking to me though, bringing stories of fire in the Bible to my attention.
I still didn’t want it. Even the color palette made me anxious. And I resented all the fire He seemed to be bringing into my life. I flew to Colorado, a much needed reprieve. Even there, the mountains I’d gone to paint were hazy, obscured by the record number of fires burning in the Pacific Northwest.
And then I got the call my father had suddenly died. Heart attack. No time to say goodbye. No time for resolution or the reconciliation I know wouldn’t have occurred, even if he’d seen death coming.
The ensuing days have been fire. But when I came home and stood in front of this painting, I was ready to let go. Ready to surrender, not to the fire of grief and trouble, but to the fire of The Holy Spirit. The One whose very voice splits the flames of fire. The One who is tongues of fire.
When I surrendered, everything slotted into place, and what had been turmoil flowed off my paintbrush with ease.
He knew what I’d walk through and had been preparing me, priming the canvas, both of my heart, and literally, painting a story of redemption that unfolds slowly, but beautifully, even in the pain.