It's taken awhile to get back here - obviously. My illness waxes and wanes, and right now it's very active. So I've not been posting a lot or doing just about anything.
No sketching - no painting - no blogging. Even tho the materials needed are right at hand.
I can't seem to gather enough energy for a simple sketch.
It's an odd situation. I haven't been this sick since it first started in 1988. I am surrounded with the tools of creativity, from pencils to watercolors to yarn. I usually have several projects started and ongoing. I've been borrowing gorgeous travel photos to sketch, of Italy and Hawaii and Japan - I usually keep them a week and sketch them out - this one, of Venice, I've had for a month. My perspective is wonky and the times I've tried to sketch turn out lousy.
It bugs me.
And now I think God is trying to get my attention.
He's led me to the book The Daniel Prayer, and there's a list of sins to consider prayerfully, quoted from "an old timer revivalist" that are forming a substantial burr under my spiritual saddle. Anne Graham Lotz shares how this old timer person listed these probing questions - essentially to draw a circle around yourself and make sure everything in that circle is pure. She shares how the first time thru she was a little smug. "I don't do any of those things," she thought. The second time thru she was uncomfortable. The third time thru she was on her knees, crying.
I've been thru once.
And that burr is digging into my heart and spirit. I can taste that smugness she spoke of. And I'm wondering where that list is going to take me.
I have a feeling I don't really want to try a second time.
Job says that "man is born to trouble as sparks fly upward."
And I agree.
I've set off a few fireworks in my lifetime. And they weren't the pretty kind.
I know somehow I've become so comfy in my "Christian walk" that I've probably rationalized some things - and refused to see others.
So, if you are a praying person, please pray for courage for me - the courage to comb my soul with God's viewpoint, to agree with whatever He shows me and to repent with my whole heart.
Because when I get right down to it, I want to know that inside that circle, all is well. That there's no grey areas, no spots where I have compared myself to another sinner and shined up my halo. I want nothing hiding in my heart, no barrier between my Holy Holy Holy Lord God Almighty and the deepest spot in my soul.
Period,
