Faith in My Hands

The expression of my relationship with God is a very tactile experience for me.  I feel it in my hands.  Others may have a more audio relationship through the listening of music or a visual one in the awe of His creation and others still, a cerebral relationship with a more contemplative nature.  At any given time, I can have an experience with God in each of these ways but predominantly, it's through my hands that I gauge how much time I've spent with Him.

I want to be clear that I don't work on production in ORDER to build a relationship with God or believe that it is in some way a bartering system that enables me to get more the more I do. I find, however, that it is when my faith is expressed through my hands, that I feel the fullness of my relationship with God by default.  It's through the drawing, writing and the making of things, that I feel most fully aware of God's grace, that I feel the most forgiven and redeemed.  It is in my quiet time with our Father, when I receive inspiration and we are doing together, that I feel most loved by Him.  I was sharing these thoughts with my husband after several uninspired days left me feeling depressed and abandoned.  It brought a previously unknown vulnerability into sharp focus:  Growing up, I didn't do a lot of drawing or writing and I wasn't particularly imaginative so when inspiration doesn't come, it's too easy to remember what my life was like without Him.

Through the book, The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman, I discovered "quality time" and "service" are two of my main love languages.  It was the quality time with God that I was lacking.  It hadn't been that God had walked away.  My feelings were a result of not being deliberate in my time to be with HIM as I let other aspects of my life take priority. 

I wish I could tell you that I go through each moment of my day with the feelings of being forgiven and redeemed but I am easily distracted.  I have the KNOWLEDGE that I am both but being in the constant STATE of either is a discipline that I have yet to master.  It is in these distractions that I allow my past to live on or an unkind word flairs too easily.  It is in these distractions that I allow hopelessness to creep in or I waste time with regret.  It is through my hands, however, that I find PROOF of a redeemed life.  It is where my faith is manifested in a form that satisfies the needs of my flesh:  I can feel it, I can see it and I can show it. It is through my hands that I measure how far I've come.

My greatest fear is not that God will tip me out of His hand but that I will inadvertently walk off of it, either through a lack of faith or into the wanderings of my own ego, desires and ambition.  It's through my hands that I feel most anchored to Him.

This New Creation has to create to feel finished.  There are thoughts I have to work out, I have a Spirit that can't be contained and my LOVE needs a way to be expressed.  It is the overflowing of gratitude that comes from the gut, down my arms and out of my fingertips. Through writing, drawing and making, I have a tangible thing to lay at the alter. 

Maybe someday I will reach the spiritual maturity that is comfortable in pure contemplation, fully abandoned to accepting my value in Christ with nothing to show but my life. I'm not there yet though.  It's too vulnerable, too naked.  I still need the thing in my hand to say, "See?  I'm more than I've been", each time I pass a mirror. It's through my hands that I have been provided an "after" to my "before".

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Studio 3:33 - "Mommy, Do We Live in God's Painting?" - August 30, 2010

This drawing is my favorite.  It was inspired by a conversation initiated by my daughter and it is dedicated to her.