For anyone who has been following my blogs knows that I have not published anything in roughly a year. Well, it seems that I am BACK!
This last year has been very hard emotionally, and we have lived under some of the worst stress in this Christian walk. But, God has seen fit to bring us through, and now that the "old me" that needed dissolving has finally been dealt with, He is introducing some new ideas into our lives.
I have been taking pictures of our home life, for ministry, and travels for over six years now. Unfortunately, almost all of the pictures from the house we gave up over four years ago were lost when my computer crashed, except for a precious few I had submitted to Google Earth, and a few albums on Facebook. I have learned that, when God wants you to turn loose of the past, He will take away the reminders, so that it makes us less likely to return there. That is a good thing if some of those memories bring pain that He wants us to turn loose forever. Finally, I feel that has been accomplished. No one could be more thankful than my husband. God bless him for all he has gone through with me, and for me.
So, with all those pictures, and a lot of them used in *ministry, I had a lot of "extra" pictures left over. And, some of them are very good. So, God moved me about a month ago, to come up with my own logo as a "photographer". I built a small website to show off the best photos. And, now it has developed into a concept called "photomanipulation", and I now have art that I have created from my photos for sale on fineartamerica.com; a website where literally millions of people display, and sell, their artwork. It is an avenue that I had never considered before just a few weeks ago, and even though it could be listed as a "hobby", I know God will use it to minister to someone-or many someones-in the future.
I have always loved to "create". When my kids were small, I made all of their clothing (and most of my own). I had my own landscaping business until the economy tanked a few years ago. I designed many gardens, and built many from "the ground up". Pun intended.
With this picture taking in the midst of God's creation, I realize that God is an artist, a designer, a gardener, a CREATOR, in a more meaningful way than I ever learned in Sunday School lessons. To see a snippet of who God is, look closely at the center of a daisy, or the wings of a dragonfly, or the web of a spider. All these things make wonderful images on paper, or on the computer screen. But, there is wonder and amazement in the arrangement of God's creation. And, if He has fashioned the flowers, birds and bees with such diversity and uniqueness, then imagine how He has fashioned us. No wonder that David said that "we are fearfully and wonderfully made."
(How Proclamation & Prayer came about is featured in my blog Favoring Joseph.)
