Awesome day!

What an awesome day!  I have been in prayer about this ministry house this past week especially.  I want to be a blessing to this town and this neighborhood, but I need God to send in the people and send in the finances (donations) so we can keep this place open!

So, I was busy painting my aspen trees and coming up with lesson plans for people (that I’m praying in) when a friend comes in.  She had been over at City Hall paying her utilities and she came in to see how I was doing and how things are going.  She was lamenting about finances and how she had to do some creative juggling to pay a disconnect notice.  I was reminded of the chapter in Timothy William and I had been talking about this morning – 2 Tim. 2:4 – that we are not to be entangled in the affairs of this life.  Now, that doesn’t mean not to take care of business, but rather, to be good stewards of what God does give us and not to worry about what tomorrow may bring or to worry, period, about the affairs of this life.  Now, William and I had been discussing lately about why God brought us to Colorado and how we’ve become entangled in ‘chasing the wind’ – William working too much, to the point of exhaustion.  He had been putting in so many hours of hard labor lately, that he’s been too exhausted to commune with God like he wants to do and the preaching/evangelizing he knows he needs to do.  We can’t get so busy trying to earn a living so that we can have ‘stuff’, that we don’t need, nor do we neglect the spiritual things that God has called us to, because we get too busy even to earn the basics of life, but rather, we are to totally trust in God to provide what we need.  So many people ‘chase the wind’ thinking they need to live the middle or even high class living standards that Americans have established as basic -  we don’t need all the extras!  Shopping for trinkets, more computers and gadgets, having internet, cable, the latest phone, 2+ cars, tons of furniture, clothes, etc and etc – we know from the Word that God supplies what we need not necessarily what we want.  What we want may not be good for us! 

aspens still in progress ...

We are to serve Him, go after Him and ‘all these things will be added’ – not the ‘things’ we think we need, but shelter, clothing (what is essential), food, etc.  I am thankful to have a roof over my head, but if I need to go back to living in a tent – so be it!  I am thankful for whatever God provides.  If He provides the extras – so be it!  But I’m not going into debt or stress over what I don’t have.

Anyway, so I’m talking to my friend when the newspaper guy comes in to give me the latest copy of the Fountain news.  I start to go through it when I ask if our article came out in this issue.  He says, “no, it will be in next week’s issue.”  That was OK because I’m still waiting for the new artists to bring in their work to hang.  I really didn’t want a bunch of new people coming in to look at an art gallery with bare walls!  So, while we’re talking, in comes Kayla (the 18-year old who I was expecting to come back).  She is a very bright girl, so I told her I had an awesome art project that I was just setting up to do and asked if she wanted to join me.  We had an awesome day – she’s not only very bright generally, but very artistic, extremely creative, and musical – she plays the violin.  So we worked on this really cool color wheel project I had found on the internet (a break from the traditional circle) and we talked non-stop for hours.  She and I have a lot in common.  So about 3 or so, this lady and 4 kids (I had met her last week when she came in inquiring about the free art lessons I was advertising, a homeschool family) came in and it was totally wild (a whirlwind of activity in 20 minutes or less).  While Kayla worked on her art project, I got another table set up and prepared all the while talking with these kids and gave them a quick run-down on color theory.  I got everything set up, paint shirts on the kids, and gave them a quick run-down on how to paint the colors in the rain bow (tying in with the quick color theory speech), so I set them to working and went back to talk with Kayla.    Those kids ended up having a wonderful time!  In the mean time, Kayla had gone home (1 block away) and gotten her artwork and violin and proceeded to show me – wow, she’s incredibly talented with minimal instruction and I told her I wanted to see her do some more artwork to hang in my gallery!  That totally charged her up.  She also had this awesome little birdhouse Christmas ornament.  I told her that would be perfect if she could make more to sell in here since the Christmas festival was coming up Dec. 14^th.

Now, what made the whole day so awesome is that I kept telling her that it was obvious that God had his hand on her, protecting her over the years from the abuse she suffered – as she had told me her story, it was obvious that god had even saved her from greater tragedy – more sickness, mental disorder/sickness – she turned out so well-adjusted, well on the way to healing and recovery both mentally and physically and obviously growing spiritually!  What a total miracle!  Coming into this studio was obviously God-led and a major thing for her healing and recovery – art therapy and spiritual growth.  I also told her that it was an answer to my prayers, because I want to help people like her.  She told me of how the enemy (Satan and his cohorts) had been trying to prevent her from coming in – when she showed up a month ago and even last week – how the enemy came on her with such severe depression and despair, she was giving up on everything, but God led her to come in.  We talked spiritual warfare and I gave her some ‘tools’ to battle with.

my little store of art supplies for sale and my collection of paintings I've been doing at Neil's.

Kayla had brought her violin, so I encouraged her to get it out and lets play some music together.  It got out my flute and we did a couple pieces, incl. Pachelbel’s Canon in D.  AWESOME!  I decided that she was going to do the Christmas concert with me Dec. 14 – I had been asked to play during a segment of the day AND to do an art project with kids the day of the festival.  We’re going to play several songs together, so I gave her homework – work on Pachelbel and Gesu Bambino.  She’s done one before, but not the other. 

About 4, I got a call from Justin (I had set him up with a job where William had worked before, at the mall), so I closed the shop and picked him up and sent Kayla on her way with us both totally excited and charged up about the future!