art in transition

Have you ever been given a time in your life when you get to just sit back and watch God provide?

That's where I'm at right now.

Well, when I say "sit back" I really mean pack and unpack a million boxes, learn a new city and a new school and a new life for myself and my husband and this wild pack of children, and meet hundreds of new people whose names are a blur, and organize a house while pizza-eating kids stomp on bubble wrap and fight over night lights.

This life is full of so much everything right now.

But part of me is sitting back.

Though the grief lingers, and I miss my Indiana home, and the to-do list is huge, the biggest of the Big Feelings I have at this moment is: Wow.

Wow, how God provides.

We have only just begun to drink of His provision here in Michigan, but the well is deep, and He has already given so much more than we asked or imagined.

Surely the presence of the Lord is in this place.

hand-me-down art and luncbox packing art!

I haven't been writing much. And I almost said something crazy about that, like, "I am setting my art aside for awhile while we get settled." But then I remembered what I learned from Emily P. Freeman about art.  I'm still me, still a child of God accepted by grace alone, still receiving all that I need and more from the Father.  And what He gives is still spilling out all over the place on those around me. And that's art.

I've been practicing the art of organizing a home, helping with homework, walking a dog on a leash, and hanging up uniforms in a neat little rows.  We've been learning the art of sitting in grief, and the art of opening hearts to a new place and new people. We've eaten the fruits of other people's kitchen art, and we've moved into a house full of new-floor art, and clean everything, and the smooth art of freshly painted walls.

And God is still creating, sustaining all things by His Word:
the pine trees, the black squirrels, and the people in the hundreds of cars driving by my new home each day; and the pastor, called to this place, to this enormous job; along with his family.

We are upheld.  God is faithful.