Beauty Defies Despair

Is it still 2021?

Is it just me, or has it already been a long year?

Here’s a word of encouragement. I hope it will bless and strengthen you: Chaos is God’s canvas. He does His best work when everything is “without form, and void”, when everything is chaos. I firmly believe the Holy Spirit’s answer to chaos is that we create something beautiful.

I set my heart to get back into the studio this week. I set my mind to be an imitator of God. I set my hands to a good work, and got to work.

There were a lot of journaling pages, because that is how I warm up. All my best mistakes are made inside the pages of my art journals.

But at some point, the cup overflows, and I have to pick up a substrate and make.

These were the 3 pieces that came out of the making. All three sold. Not that selling is an indicator of worth or value - not at all. My point is, what if I had allowed the overwhelm (with political upheaval) to keep me out of the studio? It would have been so easy to use my usual means of escape - it would have been so easy to dive into hours and hours of Bible study.

Yes. Bible study is my escape, because enneagram 5. Studying my Bible is beautiful and important, but I can’t tell you how many times I do that when I should be in the studio slinging paint - I know this for a fact, deep inside. I draw such deep comfort from studying Scripture. But at some point, all that study must become faith.

Faith without accompanying action is worthless, being alone. The accompanying action does not have to be volunteering at a soup kitchen. It does not have to be the act of giving my body to be burned. It does not have to be leaving for Africa on a missions trip. All those things are good - well, not the burning body stuff, I hope you understand what I am getting at.

What action do you need to take in the area of your calling? That is the action that, for you, is an act of faith! What might that be, for you? What sort of making are you called to? I think making is one of the deepest acts of faith we can do, whether that be making art or making dinner or making love with your spouse or making things right in the world.

I’m glad I got “in there” and got my hands dirty. And do you know what else? All those hours of Bible study come out in every piece of art that I do. It all somehow ties together, because I was made for all of it.

Ever since the December 2020 calendar page dropped dramatically into the trash can, ever since January 2021 arrived, there has been one song I have sung over and over again. Almost every time I hear it, I fight back the tears. I want to share it with you, because I still believe that “Beauty Defies Despair”:

The Common Bond and Secret Sign

This is a #wip - a Work In Progress, entitled “A Common Bond - A Study of Mary and Elizabeth”

There is that which is on the inside of every certain woman.  It may be covered and contained, secretly nourished in stolen moments of late-night devouring. It may be known only to her, but it is viable.  It is promising and it is moving about inside, and it must be defended and fed.

The less anyone else can tell of its being, the more it is destined to be.  The more impossible it is, the more possible it will be.

Here is how you know that you are of the company of certain women:  you are either “too young or too old”.  You are either over-or-under-qualified. In some significant way, you just do not fit the demographic. Yet, that which is conceived inside of you is of the Holy Spirit.  No one but another certain woman will understand it.  

There are no apparent signs. All is maddeningly ordinary. The moment Mary’s heralding angel left her, everything was instantly as it was before.  Mary didn’t have a smashed pumpkin or a single glass slipper to assure her that what just happened was real.  All the glowing glory was gone.  She was alone, standing with her hand on her belly.  There was only the blast of a breeze from the slamming shut of heaven’s portal, the flutter of the linen that wrapped around her long hair.

To the uncertain onlooker, that breeze was nothing but the old drafty door.

But for Mary, that wind was the evidence of things not yet seen.  The Message received.  The Word conceived and believed.

That was all.  Yet that was everything.

But there was one thing.  One sign was left, assuring her titanic transition was on the horizon.  Yes, there was that one indicator.  And it is still, to this day, the common bond and similarity amongst certain women who are young and certain women who are old.

The bleeding stopped coming.  The cessation of menstruation is the only cessation common to the expectant young and the past-all-expecting old. Pregnancy and menopause are a sign and a wonder carried in the body and common to most women young and old.  And to each and all, the Holy Ghost loves to come and to fill the empty spaces - there is no cessationist theology with God, and a certain woman knows it, no matter what the men are saying.

No matter your age, you can be expectant with a promise which is going to change everything in your family.  This promise will also dramatically change your inner circle, as it has mine.  As it did for Mary, when the angel told her what was inside her ordinary old cousin, Elizabeth.  Elizabeth - a certain woman whose bleeding had long since ceased, yet she was also no cessationist, no matter what the man in her life was saying, or was unable to say.

She also had on the inside of her that which was full of the Holy Ghost.

The angel Gabriel knew that what was conceived and believed on the inside had to be defended and fed.  So he disclosed to Mary the identity of another certain woman: Mary must be near someone else who was also expectant.  Mary needed the proximity of another woman who was voraciously hungry, always feeding a private promise.  

What is your secret sign?  What is your intimate indicator that the Holy Ghost is birthing a supernatural promise inside you?  No one else can tell what has happened, because no one in your immediate circle has heard the Lord like you have.  No one else would believe it, because you are either too young or too old.

But you know what you heard is true.  You know it so strongly, you can feel it in your own body - “down to the bones”, as they say.  

Find other women who are also expectant and certain of the same.

In time, all that was told you will be apparent to your skeptics.  In time, you will hold the promise in your very hands.  In the meantime - literally “in the middle time” - let your promise be fed and defended.  May you be aware of the quiet sign, of the intimate indicator, telling you that everything is about to change.

Planted in the house of the LORD, They will flourish in the courts of our God. They will still yield fruit in old age; They shall be full of sap and very green, To declare that the LORD is upright; He is my rock, and there is no unrighteousness in Him.