When you feel like giving up on your vision...

I've debated whether to share this, but in case it encourages someone to keep going and not give up on the vision they've been given, I am going to go ahead and share. About a year ago, I had a vision of teaching online art journaling classes. The vision, or dream, caught me by surprise because I'm not really a computer, internet person. I started this blog because I wanted to be a part of a community and connect with like-minded people after the school I had taught Art at for ten years closed. There was no thought of online classes at that point. But when the idea came, it wouldn't leave. I tried to ignore it. I took online courses from other artists, contemplating if I should/could learn how to teach in that new way. Eventually I said "Yes." Since then, it's been an uphill battle. Learning, by trial and error, extra-ordinary obstacles, etc. I wanted to quit and gave all the reasons why I wasn't the right person for this venue. I became very discouraged, and when I put it on the shelf, God gave it back to me through others like my husband cheering me on, and my friend Anneli coming to help with the web work. Then more friends joined in to pray for me, and it made all the difference in the world. God gave me just what and who I needed at that moment, and whispered to my heart, "Keep going. I am with you."

Last week, I came across this entry in Jan Karon's book, A Continual Feast, that quotes Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest. It resonated with the process I had been going though. It also provided the motivation to finish the "Faith" art journal. Here is the excerpt:

From the reading of July 6, in

My Utmost for His Highest

by Oswald Chambers

“And the parched ground shall become a pool.” Isaiah 35:7

"We always have visions, before a thing is made real. When we realize that although the vision is real, it is not real in us, then is the time that Satan comes in with his temptations, and we are apt to say that it is no use to go on. Instead of the vision becoming real, there has come the valley of humiliation.

“Life is not as idle ore,

But iron dug from central gloom,

And batter’d by the shocks of doom,

To shape and use.”

God gives us the vision, the He takes us down to the valley to batter us into the shape of the vision, and it is in the valley that so many of us faint and give way. Every vision will be made real if we will have patience. Think of the enormous leisure of God! He is never in a hurry. We are always in such a frantic hurry. In the light of the glory of the vision we go forth to do things, but the vision is not real in us yet; and God has to take us into the valley, and put us through fires and floods to batter us into shape, until we get to the place where He can trust us with the veritable reality. Ever since we had the vision God has been at work, getting us into the shape of the ideal, and over and over again we escape from His hand and try to batter ourselves into our own shape.

The vision is not a castle in the air, but a vision of what God wants you to be. Let Him put you on His wheel and whirl you as He likes, and as sure as God is God and you are you, you will turn out exactly in accordance with the vision. Don’t lose heart in the process. If you have ever had the vision of God, you may try as you like to be satisfied on a lower level, but God will never let you."