Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: STORM (10/05/17)
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TITLE: Wind, Rain, and Fire | Previous Challenge Entry
By Judy Ewald
10/12/17 -
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As an artist, I love God’s creation especially His wonderful skies. From the clear blue to the stormy ones. I took art classes at a local community college several years ago. I painted an ‘after the storm scene.’ With dark clouds and streams of sunlight shining through. I painted some small buildings in the foreground in black. I added three telephone poles on the left from tall to short to give it perspective.
A friend was looking at my painting and said, “I see a face in the clouds.”
As I looked, sure enough, you could see a face it was purely by accident, or I wonder if God directed that unbeknownst to me. It was fun to discover it.
Then she said, “Your three telephone poles look like three crosses, did you do that on purpose?”
“No, I just put them in for perspective.”
This was becoming a very interesting picture with a lot more meaning then I had previously intended.
The face made me think of how God has been looking out for me in the storms of my life when I did not know He was there, He was. I was in a relationship personally and professionally with a troubled man who used drugs. I used to say he was the smartest-dumbest man I had known. In the beginning we performed together as magician and clown. We created art, magic props, and wrote a book together.
But I never knew when he would erupt and create violent situations. I had never been in an abusive relationship before. Every time after an eruption and things calmed down, I hoped that he would get better but it never happened. Even when he became sober it did not change his manipulative controlling personality.
Without going into details, God used that relationship to show me I was on the wrong track to the truth I was seeking. Over time and circumstances, I came to know I could never fix me from all my failures and shame. I was seeking truth in all the wrong places. Truth was in the Word of God. Jesus did not need me to fix myself, but I had to give Him complete control of my life. He paid the price for my sin and guilt when He died on that cruel cross and gave me a new life. He also delivered me from that stormy relationship.
Now I have encountered many other kinds of troubles and trails over the years, but I have found the Lord to be faithful. He makes a way when there is no way.
The Lord really ministers to me through His Word and also though many hymns.
I would like to share one of my favorites:
How Firm a Foundation
How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord,
Is laid for your faith in His excellent Word,
What more can He say than to you He hath said,
To you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?
“Fear not I am with thee, O be not dismayed,
For I am thy God, and will still give thee aid,
I’ll strengthen thee, help thee and cause thee to stand,
Upheld by My righteous, omnipotent hand.
When through the deep waters I call thee to go,
The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow,
For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,
And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.
When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,
My grace, all-sufficient, shall be they supply.
The flame shall not hurt thee, I only design,
Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine.
The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose,
I will not, I will not desert to his foes,
That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,
I’ll never, no, never, no, never forsake.”
By “K” in Rippon’s A Selection of Hymns, 1787
So whatever trial or trouble you may be in, God has your back,
and will deliver you from the storm or in the storm.
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Watch out for run-on sentences there were a few here and there throughout the story.
Nicely done.
I liked all the symbolism within the picture that correlated with your life.