When I was really sick I often couldn’t read more than a verse or two of the Bible at a time or attend church meetings. I had to find some different ways to engage with God, I needed more tools in my toolbox. One of these was painting with worship music on, I had never done this before but God used it to encourage me and speak to me. I started painting whatever came into my mind, often simple pictures which could take days to do. My first one was a cross with the word ‘hope’ underneath, I kept coming back to it, God used it to bring me comfort. Here are a couple of my pictures and how God spoke to me as I did them:
Christ’s nail scarred hands: As I painted this picture I reflected on and thanked Jesus for taking up his cross for me. He was pierced for my transgressions (Isaiah 53:5) because of God’s love for me so that I can know God and spend eternity with him (John 3:16).
God has the whole world in his hands! When I was really ill it was hard sometimes to have a perspective beyond my difficult day-to-day reality. God reminded me that he created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1) and as I painted this picture it helped put my problems in perspective. God is the Alpha and the Omega, or in other words the beginning and the end (Revelation 1:8) and nothing is impossible for him (Matthew 19:26).
Through illness I have discovered some really cool ways to engage with God which I would have never previously considered. I’m grateful to God for showing me them, I find I go through seasons and that some are more appropriate at certain times than others. For example, I’m not currently painting because I can read again and I’m enjoying getting into the Bible and Christian books. Is there something new that you could try today to engage with God?
Note: In previous blog posts I have explored some other ideas for engaging with God when very sick. These include: in sung worship (here), getting the Bible into you (here) and the power of bullet prayers (here).
Praise Through Trials 
You’re also a talented painter! Thanks for this thoughtful post.
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Wonderful post!! Great encouragement, so much truth! Awesome painting too!!
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Love this 🧡
It reminds me of doing a prophetic painting workshop at Newday. We had blindfolds on and had already put the colours on a paper plate palette ready, and we prayed beforehand as a group. Then we just painted whatever without knowing what we were painting. Afterwards we all took off our blindfolds and interpreted each other’s paintings.
My one looked like an ‘eye’ and I was told that God has given me great empathy for others and is using my experiences to notice things in other people that would usually be missed. I should also add that the people at this workshop had never met each other before and we didn’t know anything about each other.
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That sounds great! I did a prophetic art workshop at Devoted one year which was fun and really blessed people. Thanks for sharing 😃
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