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Some of my best memories from childhood involve drawing and creating. My dad would bring home giant stacks of used paper from his office, and my little brothers and I would fill the blank side

with wonderful drawings of whatever captured our imaginations at that time—castles or magical creatures or Star Wars characters. I was almost always creating something.

Then I became a grownup, and life felt busy. It didn’t seem like I had room to pursue art regularly. Although I dreamed of making it a consistent part of my life, art seemed like a luxury for which I had no time.

My world drastically changed one Sunday afternoon with a panicky phone call from my brother. Our dear dad, struggling with depression and health problems, had attempted suicide. Ultimately, there was nothing the doctors could do, and we lost him.

Thus began a surreal journey through darkness and confusion, trying so hard to understand that which is not understandable. It was during this season of grief that my husband encouraged me to sign up for an art class through a city program. Once a week I would drive across town to my painting class and pour myself into the project for the day. In my grief, time seemed to crawl by with excruciating slowness. But in those moments spent creating, time would pass without my awareness. I would lose myself in the art, and God was using those small acts of creation to bring healing to my wounded soul.

Parker Palmer writes,

 

The soul is like a wild animal—tough, resilient, and yet shy. When we go crashing through the woods shouting for it to come out so we can help it, the soul will stay in hiding. But if we are willing to sit quietly and wait for a while, the soul may show itself.Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey toward an Undivided Life (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004), 58.

 

Creating art of any sort can offer a “backdoor” means of accessing our souls. It provides a way to give space and freedom for the soul to show itself.

One key to caring for our souls is learning to see God in and around us. Juliet Benner writes, “I discovered the enormous potential of physical seeing as a doorway to spiritual seeing.”Juliet Benner, Contemplative Vision (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2011), 13. Meditating on works of art depicting Bible stories or themes around the faith journey has been a powerful practice to help me see God more clearly. It stirs and enlarges my imagination and brings the Word to life. Every artist has a theology that shapes his or her work. As I gaze at a piece of art, I contemplate the message expressed through images, color, symbols, pencil lines, and brush strokes, paying attention to the thoughts and emotions evoked. This practice encourages me to dig deeper into what I believe is true. It makes God bigger to me and deepens my belief that he “is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us” (Ephesians 3:20, NIVAll Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™).

After experiencing the healing power of art in my own life, I began to ask the Lord for creative ways to bring together my love of art with my faith. Intrigued with the idea of keeping an art journal, I experimented with slowly writing out passages of Scripture and prayers. Then I would sit with those words for a while and see what stirred in my heart, following up with some simple artistic design. I found that this small practice was helping me to take these thoughts and ideas to a deeper place. It was another way of meditating on Scripture.

I noticed this growing desire to discover or create other ways to meditate on Scripture. Beginning with the Gospel of Matthew, I covered the page with a grid that had twenty-eight little boxes for each of the twenty-eight chapters. I began by slowly reading chapter 1, lectio divina style. The verse that captured my attention was, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name of Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21, NIV). So in the first box, I wrote that verse out with a black marker and then took out my pencils and colored it yellow. The process was simple, yet somehow lingering on it, slowly writing out the words, and adding some color made it stick in my thoughts.

Day by day, I meandered through the New Testament and then some of the Old Testament, practicing this way of meditating on Scripture. It dawned on me: I was enjoying myself and, in the process, absorbing more of the richness of the text and catching small details previously missed. Just like in art class, I would lose track of time, and my soul found a quiet place to belong, rest, and heal.

Consider these words from Romans,

 

With eyes wide open to the mercies of God, I beg you, my brothers and sisters, as an act of intelligent worship, to give him your bodies, as a living sacrifice, consecrated to him and acceptable by him. Don’t let the world around you squeeze you into its own mould, but let God re-mould your minds from within, so that you may prove in practice that the plan of God for you is good, meets all his demands and moves towards the goal of true maturity (Romans 12:1–2, PhillipsScripture quotations marked (Phillips) are taken from The New Testament in Modern English, copyright © 1958, 1959, 1960 J.B. Phillips and 1947, 1952, 1955, 1957 The Macmillian Company, New York. Used by permission. All rights reserved.).

 

Pain and struggle are part of this life, and yet God uses that suffering to draw us to himself, inviting us to be at rest in him. He graciously invites us into personal transformation through gifts of creativity to renew our minds, heal our souls, and reflect his love and grace to a beautiful and broken world.