Day 31 of Lent - A One Minute Studio Tour

I get weekly requests to see my home studio.

Though my creative space is not fancy, and not nearly as large and beautiful as some of my friends’ studios, GOSH, I love my art studio.

Why don’t you come on in? You’ll see. It isn’t a big space. But I get an enormous amount of work done in it, and I make use of every square inch. I have pared down to a minimalism that could even allow me to do small, private classes for up to three students - I’m trying to decide if that is something I want to do this summer, or early next year.

Thanks for dropping by. On the interwebs, not in real life. If we were IRL, I would be saying, “Thanks for calling first, setting up a good time, and coming to visit.”

I’m just sayin’. My daughter Sarah is enneagram 7, and they supposedly love drop in guests…but not Sarah. I’m an enneagram 5. Enneagram 5’s don’t do dropping in.

So yeah. Call first, make sure I’m not in the middle of video taping a class, and head on over.

As long as I know you are coming, I will bake a chewy, heavenly loaf of French bread, have a fire in the Preway, and we could pop open a bottle of Merlot and have ourselves the best time.

Day 30 of Lent {and a conversation with a friend}

I hope you have women in your life who have a walk in the Spirit.

Have you ever had relationships in your life where your perspective was muddled? Where your thinking goes this way and that, and your view of yourself within the context of that muddled relationship just isn’t true to your design? There exist people in this world who, though not maliciously and not by conscious design, are subversive. They prefer you to be muddled. Because then they can attempt to insert their agenda onto your calling, and distract you from your highest work with their relational shenanigans. And those people will often want to draw near to a person with a clear calling. They want inside your inner circle, but if and when they get there, they act out when things don’t go their way.

Anyhoo.

In one hour flat, I had a conversation with a friend and she cut straight to the chase and dispensed with chit chat and also honored the living daylights out of me, and let me know in the clearest terms possible that she could sense that there had been women in my past who maybe started out in friendship and honor but allowed a spiritual enemy or other people to influence their perspective, and those relationships ended up being something I was meant to leave.

I knew that part already. That was not anything I have not already learned. BUT.

But not just leave. I was meant to learn a lesson.

I’m meant to have an ability to discern when these things are in play, and never make time for it again.

My Lord. (That’s no euphemism. I’m talking to Him, right now, right here!)

I marveled at the clarity that cut through some fog I’d been under concerning some very present issues (not in my church, hallelujah…these issues are completely, totally outside my church) and I hung up the phone with an uncomplicated, precise plan of action that came to me of its own accord. My friend didn’t script it, whatsoever.

That’s what relationships with women who have a walk in the Spirit should look like.

She’s a new friend, and without knowing a single detail about my past, told me explicitly that those women in my past who failed to honor the relationship have lost out on something of immense value. And she considers their loss to be her gain, and thinks herself to have inherited their blessing, and she’s thrilled to take it.

It was the sort of conversation that, even though I am completely healed of every bit of trauma from this past season, when we were done talking, I had to wash my face.

I’m telling you, God has been utterly faithful to bring women like this, young and old, out of nowhere. Out of the woodwork. At least six of them (interestingly, DOUBLE the number of my loss….wow….) Some of these fire-breathing women are local to me, some within my church who have just stepped up to speak life to me constantly, some of them in other parts of the USA, and a few in the nations of the world.

Lest you think everything in this conversation was all rainbows and butterflies and honoring of me, you need to know, I also got off the phone with a crystal clear idea of exactly where I needed to repent and change my mind.

And now, I have a phone call to make, myself.

Oh, I hope you have friends who are filled with the Holy Ghost!