I was in a Zoom woman’s church meeting on Tuesday, studying “Experiencing God” by Blackaby. It was my 66th birthday, Cinco de Mayo, two reasons to party, but I haven’t felt like partying in a long time, besides we’re in the Corona virus isolation thing.

“I know that I’m supposed to love God above all other worldly things, but I have a hard time accepting that when it comes to my children,” I said. Most moms would agree with me I thought, this is really hard to do, and especially for a Newbie Christian like me.

Donna began to speak and when Donna speaks, I listen intently. She has impacted me on many occassions with just the right words, words that I have difficulty remembering exactly, but the feeling is profound and lingers. As she spoke, a door opened up inside me. She said something to do with that God loves them more than we do, that he gave them to us for a little while, that we can’t really control or influence them once they’ve grown up but God can, and yes it’s hard to do but we must or we’ll drive ourselves crazy. Maybe I imagined that last part. Then she suggested that I draw an image of God with my children, that she herself had done this and that the exercise was helpful in releasing her children to His loving care and that she’d refer back to the drawing when she was having a hard time with her kids. She was weeping now, but went on to tell me to think about the act of trusting them in God’s care as I worked.

I worked from a compilation of photos, one of my children when they were in grammer school (they are now all in their 20’s), and one a google image search result of what scientists believe Jesus actually looked like. 

Working on my children’s tender young faces and bodies, reminded me of how dear they are to me and my current frustrations  melted away. As I worked on Jesus, I resisted making him too handsome or too white. I redid His halo many times, halo’s are tough. Does anyone really have a halo or is that something artists have made up?

I’ve been working on it off and on for a few days now, and maybe I’ll never be totally satisfied with it as a work of art, but the exercise itself has been quite satisfying. If I ever do finish it, I’ll hang it in my bedroom for a frequent reminder, because as a recovering “control freak” mom, I have a short memory of how much it hurts to keep hitting my head against a brick wall.

Charcoal and pastel on paper, 18″ x 18″