fear of decay

Recently, I decided to become more of a "serious" artist, (Read last post for reference).I took a workshop after years of putting it off due to fear of decaying skills that was a result of putting it off. What a horrible cycular pattern! Let me just tell you, fear is not only crippling, but also a WAIST OF TIME. Yes, my skills somewhat decayed, it's fine. I'll gladly trade my pride and self-righteousness for the opportunity to keep and use what's left of my skill-set for something MUCH GREATER than my pettiness. In this newfound appreciation, I realized that my heart is on a hunt to discover more thoughtful content related to connecting creativity with Christ. It's a complicated mess being a Christian artist and I need all the help I can get. With that being said, I was delighted to listen to something that gave me peace about the way I've treated my talents, and hope for moving forward. What I stumbled upon was this sermon, click here to hear Isaac Anderson's full sermon entitled, "Birth".

Below is the "snip-it" that resounded with me in regards to my hesitation of using God's gifts:

  (I DO need to have more faith). But here is the other thing that I’ve internalized as a result of having this experience over and over and over: The fact that I continue to be so doubtful, the fact that I continue to be so skeptical that God is actually with me, to be so disbelieving.. It just puts the grace of God- for me it makes the grace of God in my life so astounding to me, so ridiculously astounding! The fact that he would continue to provide for me when I continue to think he’s not going to?! And so what I’ve started to learn slowly but surely in this process is that if I’m in a speaking moment and I have something to say that ends up being a gift to somebody else it’s not because I’ve made all the right decisions along the way. It’s not because I’ve had the right spiritual posture the whole time. It’s because God made a decision to come to me where I was and to bless me as I was and to fold my skepticism into the story of his faithfulness. It’s because of His posture towards me, it’s because He has decided to show his fidelity to me again.  So ultimately the story there is not about my strength, it’s not about my ingenuity, my creativity, my intelligence. The story actually is about the opposite of that, it’s about my weakness and His strength. It’s about my faithlessness and His faithfulness. The writing on the wall in my life is GRACE, it says “Grace”.

note: I painted "Anna Melissa" summer of 2010. She's one of my last paintings before I took Dad's workshop in March of 2013.