Ruthieonart

How God Speaks to Me

When God calls me I want to listen and obey. It may sound odd, but the Lord does speak to me. I’m not sure why. I only know that I want to be careful to listen to Him and to act upon what I hear. It is a gift for the Body of Christ and not myself alone. Although it brings me great pleasure, it is given to be given away. I am sure if I keep it to myself, He will remain silent. I know this because He has told me and because the scriptures tell us the gifts are for the edification of the Body. I have been given a strong sense of His presence in my life. Again, I don’t know why it is so. I have come to understand it too is a gift. I want to be faithful to come regularly into His presence, and in prayer times bring others with me by encouraging them to confess their sins and sit quietly before the Him. This desire is like a single flame that burns in my heart. He is the only one I truly desire. I can quickly lose sight of that, but if I turn my heart back, He is there.

He speaks to me by asking me questions. He speaks to me in word pictures and in a very simple, direct manner. His choice of words are measured. He speaks to me in song and in His beautiful world that surrounds me. His words are echoed in the teachings that I hear, the conversations I have with friends who enjoy His presence too. He reassures me that it truly is His voice when I find the meaning of our conversations written in the scriptures. He brings the scriptures to life for me in a powerful way so that I want to tell others. I rejoice when I am able to do that.

So when I say that God has been calling me, I mean He has been speaking to me in these ways. I know His voice and I know that a time of waiting typically follows as I struggle to walk in faith. Often there is no evidence to back up what He was told me. Often things have unfolded over a period of two years. All I know is that He is asking me to say yes to what He wants to do through me. He wants me to trust that what He wants to accomplish He will accomplish. It is His calling card to me. So, I wait, and begin to prepare. Slowly things come into focus, slowly the story unfolds, and the other players appear at the right time with the same voice calling them to join in something larger than ourselves. Then He begins to work. I long for those times, I long too be used by Him.

I have been listening to Him speak for about two years about something new He is calling me to.

Creativity-  My Area of Strength

As a young girl, some of my first memories were of my mom teaching me and my sisters at home. She was a school teacher and we had our own sort of private pre-school. I can remember supplies of paper and crayons and paint, everything a child would ever need to create. Praise from my family, teachers and friends over the years fed the desire to draw and paint. Every Christmas it was the same, all I ever wanted was art supplies. As I got older, crayons were replaced with oil paints and watercolors, pastels and chalk. There were sketchbooks filled.

            After High School I shied away from pursuing art as a vocation. Instead, I went into nursing. After a few years I realized I wasn't cut out to be a nurse and I went back to college in art. I was married at that time and we didn't have a lot of money, but Kevin encouraged me to return to school and do what I loved. When I graduated I took a job in drafting and eventually made my way into the art department of a large electronics corporation. Living in a small one company town in east central Florida this job was the best I could find. We produced technical manuals, not too glamorous, but I was working with my hands and that was enough. I became proficient in pen and ink and was introduced to computer graphics.

            Shortly before I quit work to be a stay at home mom I accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. As a new believer I decided to set aside some of the things I was involved with. In general they weren't bad things, but at the time they were not profitable for me. Art and writing were among the things I set aside. They played a prominent role in how I viewed myself. That was the problem. They defined my hopes and dreams. To succeed in those areas of my life was all important to me. How I approached art and writing at that time was steeped in the new age philosophy I had embraced many years before. Nothing fit into my new world view.

            It wasn't a hard decision to make. I wanted to be rid of anything that might offend God. I knew my creative expression had to be turned into something different than it was, something acceptable to God. But at the time I really didn't know what that meant. I knew what it meant to be an artist in the world, to write and paint. But I didn't know how to use it in praise or to worship God. If I sang, I could join the choir, but where does someone like me fit into the church? So I set my talent aside.

Up until that time I had been writing and having Haiku and short poems published. There is a small group of American Haiku writers scattered across the country and small presses that published magazines and booklets. A lot of the people involved taught in colleges, were writers, and artists. The things I wrote about and the way I wrote about them came out of my experience in meditation and my study of Zen Buddhism. I loved haiku, short poems that give glimpses of life or "haiku moments" as they are called. Expressions of nature juxtaposed by human nature fascinated me. I wanted to learn how to write in a way to that could evoke an emotion, remembrance, or sensation with just a few brief words. Before I quit writing haiku I had my first booklet published. This book had come out of a prayer where I had asked God to show me what to write. The book was a sequence of Haiku about the birth of my sons. I used Psalm 139 as the preface. My work was chosen from a hundred submissions to a contest. It was an expression of my new faith as opposed to the new age thought that permeates the haiku world, I was surprised my work was chosen.

Like wise as I abandoned my pursuit of art I had two watercolors accepted at a juried show at the local art museum. Again I was amazed to have one of them chosen because of the pro-life theme of the painting. I considered the art community in my area pretty politically correct. Our little museum was an amazing place. Artist were drawn to the area because it was located on the coast of central Florida. The area  was not a highly populated area, many of the beaches at the time where undeveloped. I was able to continue classes after college and study with some wonderful artists. Some of the teacher there were nationally known, one had world recognition. I chose to discontinue art classes in order to become a youth leader at my church. Those years with the youth were a joy to me. I never had any regrets about setting those things I loved aside. I have struggled like a double minded man when it come to whether I pursue art or the things of God. I realized early on I could not reconcile the two passions that tugged at my heart. There was always a hope that my love of art could be set apart for His Kingdom and become a part of His call on my life. It always seemed a matter of His timing. I often thought of the parable of the talents and wondered why would He give me these gifts and not call me to use them?

While my children were young I discovered other creative expressions; cross stitch, quilting, arts and crafts. I especially related to quilting. Taking bits and pieces of life and somehow fitting them into a pattern that is pleasing to the eyes reflected the world of interruptions I lived in. It was something I could easily pick up and put down. I met my quilt mentor, Nancy Frech, at church. She was trained at the New York School of Design and she encouraged me to be an artist who quilts. Soon I was making baby quilts for friends. In a few years I began to sell my mini quilts or wall hangings at arts and craft shows. I tried to incorporate my faith into the designs. I held back on using scripture in my designs because I didn't want to do anything that was trite or not well thought out. Creating a piece of art as an expression of faith and trying to market arts and crafts was something I struggled to reconcile. I preferred creating things for people I knew or items for customers that were designed to celebrate an occasion or a special friendship. I enjoyed being part of peoples lives in that way.

After six years of shows I decided I had had enough. It was then that the Lord began to move in my life in a new way. It was an invitation from Him to enter into creative pursuits, but this time from His deep abiding presence in my life. He seemed to ask, "Can you give this part of your life totally over to me? If you will, then, I will teach you to dance and worship and sing. I'll give you a voice and a vision and show you the joy of using your gifts and talents to glorify me, to stir the hearts of others and encourage them onward. Follow and I will show you how I always intended it to be with you."

Two events were instrumental to this calling. Both began the summer of 1999. The first and most amazing one was being asked to help create a concept design for the stained glass window for our new sanctuary. From my work on the window I began to see that being an artist continues even when you don't have a paint brush in your hand. My hands, I thought, had been empty for years. It took my oldest son Sean to point out that he could not remember me ever not being creative. He told me, "you know you really are always doing something like that." I've begun to see that being an artist is a way of seeing things, the rest comes with practice. Now I am dedicated to looking at things from God's eyes. My prayer is that He would let me see people, places, and things as He sees them. That I would hate the things He hates and love the things He loves.

The second event occurred when the Wednesday evening Bible study prayer group I was attending started writing devotionals. Writing opened a flood gate in me. When I am faithful to listen, and faithful to write, the Lord supplies me abundantly with things to write about. What a joy! When I write I feel as excited as when I taught youth or the women in the homeless shelter. I loved declaring the love of a faithful God to them. Writing let me show His compassion and mercies, consider His greatness, majesty, and glory, acknowledge His holiness and tremble. Even if I wanted to keep it in, I cannot.