The Story Behind...

The idea for “The Prayers of the Saints”—a golden bowl full of incense—came to me during my prayer journey a few months ago. Desperate for an answer from God and hearing nothing, I was overwhelmed by self-doubt and fear and began to question if I could truly hear His voice. In that struggle, the image of “golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Revelation 5:8 NASB1995) reassured me that I was not forgotten and that God hears His people's prayers. C

In Revelation 5, we see a glimpse into the throne room of God and what John saw in his vision of the end of days. Something important to note about Revelation before reading is that this is apocalyptic literature that uses a lot of symbolism to convey its message. Much of the imagery is not to be taken literally. This book was meant to be an encouragement to believers in Jesus in the post-apostolic age and a reminder that Christ will prevail, judgment will prevail, and everyt

Through my drawing, Blind Faith, I wanted to depict myself walking on a completely dark path. I am holding a lantern, only able to see what is right in front of me. I am essentially blind to everything else around me. Often, when walking in complete dependence on the Lord, we don’t know what is next. The Lord gives us a task one step at a time, and even if it does not make sense at all in the moment, He just requires our “yes,” and we have to have faith that He knows the end

Through my drawing, Blind Faith, I wanted to depict myself walking on a completely dark path. I am holding a lantern, only able to see what is right in front of me. I am essentially blind to everything else around me. Often, when walking in complete dependence on the Lord, we don’t know what is next. The Lord gives us a task one step at a time, and even if it does not make sense at all in the moment, He just requires our “yes,” and we have to have faith that He knows the end

If you have attended church for any extended period of time, odds are you have dealt with church hurt in some capacity. I have dealt with my fair share over the years, and to be honest, I did not handle it in a way that glorifies the Lord. After leaving a church that had deeply wounded me and where leaving was necessary, I proceeded to attend every church after with walls up and acting out from past hurts. This caused me to flee at the first sign of conflict when things looke

When waiting on God for what He was leading me to draw, I became anxious and panicked in the waiting. With every day that went by, I was agonizing over the time lost waiting for an idea when I could be working. In those few weeks, however, I was taught a lesson in God’s divine timing. In this time waiting on God, I was seeking Him in prayer and reading the Bible, trying to steward this time the best I knew how. Through this time, the Lord broke chains that were weighing me do

When trying to find inspiration for my next art piece, I was going through a rough patch, hyper-fixating on my circumstances and overcome with fear. I then received the rock shown in the drawing from my mom. She told me that she was given it at work that day and was told to carry it with her to remind herself of the story of David and Goliath, and that no matter how big our circumstances might seem, the Lord fights our battles for us. This timely reminder became the subject o

This drawing is based on the parable of the ten virgins found in Matthew 25:1-13. This imagery portrays a wedding where the ten virgins represent the church, while the bridegroom represents Jesus. The ten virgins are anxiously awaiting His return, and their job was to keep their oil lamps burning in preparation. When speaking of oil in the Bible, this signifies the Holy Spirit. In this parable, the delay of the bridegroom portrays the time between Jesus’s first and second com

When researching the meaning behind the classic Christmas decorations and imagery, I was surprised to find the meaning behind the Christmas bells. It is not something typically thought of in the traditional Christmas story, but in the parable of the lost sheep. In the article, Christmas symbols and their traditional meaning, Gallik states, “This Christmas symbol signifies the love of the Shepherd to all His sheep. The ringing of bells by the shepherd signals the ushering of l

In the beginning: before creating the world, before creating us, or saying “let there be light,” God was present in the vast formless, emptiness, and darkness. From the story of creation, one thing that is made abundantly clear is that when God speaks, creation responds (Marshman, 2019). Another thing we see in the creation story in Genesis is that God, since the beginning, as we can see with Adam and Eve, moves towards us and initiates a relationship with us. He does this ev

This drawing is based on the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. The story starts with Jesus needing to go through Samaria. In those days, Jewish people would go out of their way and walk around Samaria because of the deep dislike between them and the Samaritans. Jesus, however, knew that there were people whom he needed to meet there. Once there, weary from his journey at the hottest part of the day, he sat at Jacob’s well to rest. A woman from Samaria came t

Throughout scripture, we see an abundance of imagery and metaphors concerning the topic of refinement. The refining that all of us are subject to in our faith walk is a painful one, but necessary in the sanctification process and becoming more like Jesus. In the face of hurt and suffering, I allowed myself to go down a road where I no longer recognized who I was, my identity masked by my own bitterness. When I reached the end of myself and could no longer tolerate who I had b

In reading Mark 5, I was struck by the contrast between the healing of the woman with the issue of blood and Jairus’s daughter. Jesus showed up for them in very different ways and in a way that was very personal to what they each needed to be shown. In Jairus’s conversation with Jesus, he states, “My little daughter is at the point of death; please come and lay Your hands on her, so that she will get well and live” (Mark 5:23 NASB). He had great faith in Jesus and His ability

Through my last drawing, “Consider the Lilies”, I touched on the subject of trusting in God’s plan, even when your circumstances look impossible. Through this drawing, I want to go more in depth on the subject. During my reading of scripture and time in prayer, the Lord brought me to 1 Kings 17 to further support this topic. 1 Kings 17 is the beginning of the story of Elijah. At this time, the people of Israel had turned away from God and were putting their trust in lesser th

Throughout much of my life, I have struggled with depression. I felt robbed of my teenage years and early twenties as I saw everything through the all-encompassing lens of depression, overcome by despair, feelings of worthlessness, and suicidal thoughts. In Battle Ready Podcast- Mental Health, Erwin McManus explains that when a person breaks down, they never become overwhelmingly loving or infinitely empathetic. When we break down, it’s as though we traumatize the best parts

Thomas in the Bible, unfortunately in the western world, has been labeled as a doubter. This labelling, however, is inaccurate to who Thomas is and the rest that is known of him as a follower of Jesus. First, we need to look at the definition of doubt. Doubt is questioning an already held belief. Because Thomas did not believe that Jesus was the resurrection and life, this would not be classified as doubt, but as skepticism (Cooper, 2024). Although he can be labelled as a sil

The idea for this piece was brought about from a sermon illustration that I heard by Megan Marshman. She explained that a friend of hers was at a Christian conference, where an exercise was conducted where they had to pick two pictures: one that represents where they are currently in life and one that shows where they want to be. The first picture depicted hands holding a struggling baby bird. When asked what she felt looking at the image, she envisioned herself holding all