Notes

God spoke to me in some pretty significant and specific ways this week. Hiding little notes and doodles for me in various moments and encounters. Some may doubt it or think it's silly, but what are just scribbles to anyone else are detailed and intentional love letters to me, and vice versa. And it doesn't hurt that I know what the Lords hand writing looks like in my life. I found the first note on Monday, it was hidden in the last chapter of a book that I borrowed months ago. Some history on this book; this book was quite instrumental in what I now shall refer to as my "Spiritual Renaissance". This past summer was a really difficult for me, a lot was involved. Among other things it involved a fracture friendship/brotherhood (I won't get into any details on that, but any and all prayers on the subject would be awesome). This book, that I actually borrowed from that friend, kept me grounded, sober-minded, and my heart focused on the Lord while chunks of my life started to crack and be challenged. When I got to the last few chapters I started reading them slower and slower until I stopped altogether. I would read little bits here and there until I made it to the last chapter. But it was just was flat and lacking life. I knew it was a timing thing, so I waited. I now understand why. I would not have been ready to understand what was waiting for me in that last chapter. Other places that the Lord hid messages for me through out the week were in a few different PodCast's (some that wanted to listen to and others that I didn't), talking with friends, listening to a dream my friend had, reading during my lunch break, and I am sure there are a few I cant remember right now. Its pretty amazing how amazing He is. I love the Lord so much, and not just what He does for me but HOW He dose it. Its good to meditate on how the Lord ministers to us. It allows us to see past what He is doing to why He is doing it. And what better way to deepen our love and relationship with Christ than to better understand His Character.

The only thing these messages or notes had in common was the intentionality. Each time I felt the Lord's still small voice tell me to slow down, read, or listen. And with the obedience to that still small voice came these powerful little blessings. Lets all try and be more intentional.

The Blog that was a week in the making...

Hey Slices! You guys get to listen to me talk about this weeks drawing. My other blog got the notes on the sermon. The art stuff is more open to interpretation. The Lord has been using it as tool to sharpen the different spiritual gifts in me, and CIRCLES is a place for me to be much more vulnerable, candid, and open. Open for encouragement, correction and everything in between. So here goes!

The Drawing before PhotoShop.

These are a few spiritual gifts illustrated. Something you should understand is that I love symbolism! and over the last 6 months or so I've realize why. It's because the Lord uses, and has always used, symbolism to minister to me, just keep that in mind. This is what the Lord put on my heart to draw on Sunday. Now what only took about forty minuets to sketch took a lot longer to understand. The deeper true meaning of the sketch was unfolded to me thought out the week as I colored it and thought about what I meant. A quick side-note on how the Lord works. I find it really awesome that on Sunday all I was doing was drawing a fun picture and listening to an awesome sermon. I had no idea of the true meaning of the drawing while I was drawing it. Which is awesome because it wasn't at all a distract from the sermon. Not only did it distract me from the message it allowed it to follow me around all week! Okay so back to the drawings; the Owl is wisdom, the Eye made of the flaming tongue [like Pentecost] is decrement, the flowers growing out of the heart is joy, and the key I'm pretty sure is a form of healing. At first it was difficult for me to give meaning to all of them. But throughout the week the Lord has given me more and more, like on Wednesday I understood the flowers represent Joy. And as I was typing this I looked up the spiritual gifts on my iPhone interwebz and the Lord told me the key is a representation breaking bondage or a spiritual healing. Then the Lord continued to show me that these are the gifts he is nurturing in me right now. I was hesitating to share that at first, but I realized that was fear. So I am choosing to be bold here, and I trust the Lord with that. Thank you guys for letting me ramble about what's on my heart onto this blog.

The Drawing after Photo Shop

And you should all know that am starting to fall in love with all y'all.

Church Notes | Contentment

I have been wanting to color this for almost 2 weeks now, but I wasn't able to. I had some freelance that ate up all my time. This is from the service on contentment. The imagery was influenced from the end of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, when they meet the star named Ramandu. I wrote a whole post about him earlier this month, I guess it just really inspired me.

Basically she is a star content with hanging in the night sky. Not needing to burn any brighter than her sisters. Content at playing her part in the symphony of lights in the sky. Resting in the balance of unity and uniqueness. We all need to strive to find our special place in the sky to burn brightly for the Lord.

I know I am cheesy, but I mean every syllable of it.

The Joy Bringers

Okay, as I stand on a third floor balcony overlooking the beautiful grounds of the studio that I am blessed to work at I am about to out myself. I hope you orbiters, slices, circlers, etc appreciate this...



I know I mentioned in a previous blog that I love cats, and well its super true (not that there are degrees to truth, I am just being dramatic with a bit of whimsy for effect). This week I wasn't sure what to blog about. I even had another life drawing session at work and thought, "Maybe the Lord shall speaketh again!" No dice. Then my mind wondered back this video, my good friend Nick posted this on my Facebook wall earlier in the week. It made a good day even better! I don't know what it is about cats that bring me such unbridled joy, but they do. I am sure it's joy, not just happiness. Even on a bad day cats can claw their way right through that negative circumstance and bad mood and bring me a smile. Nothing changed other than the fact that I had a smile.

I could make some lame attempt to make this video more relevant by saying that I posted this as an illustration on how we need to slowdown and really look at things. While that is true, that isn't the reason this kitten is on my blog this week. I posted it b/c for some reason the Lord has put a deep appreciation for cats in me. Why? I don't know, and I am not even sure I care to know. But what I do know is that this is a path the Lord has used in the past to get me to smile when I didn't want to, and comfort when I didn't have any peace.

Long story short Cat's are one of my Joy Bringers. What is your Joy Bringer?

Photo

This is me trying t be "gangster".
I hope this isn't an offensive hand gesture.
If it is pls TELL ME so I can change it.

Chasing Cars

The other night at work they offered a life painting session form 6:00pm-9:00pm. Since I usually linger in Glendale anyways to miss traffic on my 47 mile commute I was all in! I was excited and nervous, I hadn't done thins kind of painting in ages! I was also excited for the quiet time this would provide. In a room filled with other people painting it is you are all alone together.

As I was painting I was praying that the Lord would speak to me. An hour or so goes by and nothing, so I rummage through my bag and get out my ear buds and plug them into my iPhone. I didn't know what to listen to, so I go to a playlist I made in the summer of 2009 called, "Songs I Like Right Now". Now for some back story on this particular playlist, this playlist in it's day was the "ish"! I was on tour that summer and had a LOT of down time driving from state to state to work on this sucker. All that to say that these were not just random songs. Back to painting! So I hit shuffle on that play list, "Chasing Cars" by Snow Patrol comes on. While listening to this I realized I liked this song a lot more back then. It was actually kind of annoying. I ask myself and God why is that? I used to love this song! Then the Lord spoke to me, He said, "You used to like this song because you had a similar wound as the men and women who created it. It spoke to you on an intimate level. Between now and then you have trusted me with that wound and I have healed it. Our intimacy eclipses shallow nature of what that song meant to you."

I was blessed and humbled by this revelation. Humbled in the since that I can now choose to be a little more patient when people tend to like songs, books, or movies that I find stupid.

I hope that made sense.