Grief can feel like moving through the day under a heavy gray blanket. Carrying the hole a loved one leaves feels so heavy. I needed to take a break and go to a place of comfort, the Psalms. When I just need to feel and be with God but don't know how to put the feelings into words, I often turn to the Psalms. The first verse of Psalm 63 was featured as the verse of a week on the HKC, His Kingdom Come community website. I found myself in Psalm 63, written when David was in the wilderness:
"O God, you are my God;
I earnestly search for you.
My soul thirsts for you;
my whole body longs for you
in this parched and weary land
where there is no water.
I have seen you in your sanctuary
and gazed upon your power and glory.
Your unfailing love is better than life itself;
how I praise you!
I will praise you as long as I live,
lifting up my hands to you in prayer.
You satisfy me more than the richest feast.
I will praise you with songs of joy."
- Psalm 63:1-5 NLT
God is in the heavy hole. Creativity is there waiting for expression. I begin to re-member, to become more whole, to trust, to feel the longing and the hope again. The Psalmist's words are coming to life for me. I am grateful. I praise you God of comfort.
While painting this page I imagined how dark it would be to be under a wing, God's wing. Secure, safe, but dark. Then it occurred to me that the only way to sing for joy in the dark is to know where I'm at, that I am safe in the shadow of God's wings.
AMAZING GLAZING!
On these pages I pushed and varied the painting processes. You can see on the left page I have a torn piece of painted paper glued on the surface. It got a little wrinkly. Oh well. The big discovery that works well for painting on Bible pages is... are you ready?.... Glazing Liquid. My friend, Linda Eld and I Bible Art Journal and we're always trying new things and doing "show-n-tell." My Show-n-Tell was how matte medium did not work very well on the Bible pages. Linda's was that Glazing Liquid is AMAZING for sealing Bible pages! We just brushed a thin coat on the page and let it thoroughly dry. It sealed the page and there weren't any wrinkles! The edges tend to curl up a little, but when we put a coat of glazing liquid on the back side of the page and let it dry, it laid perfectly flat. It seals it for no bleed through and then is ready to paint on top. You can even draw with a pencil and erase on it. Good news!