My daughter and I had an interesting conversation earlier this week. It centered on a conflict she found herself in over her church’s encouragement of the women to attend Women of Faith and her realization that in this season of life she needs people who will offer her more Scripture and insight into God’s Word.

Women of Faith is an amazing ministry event for women of all ages. I’ve attended one two-day event in the last decade, and find that the time of year the event rolls around is often a strong deterrent to attending the conference. My one experience with them prior to this year prompted me to purchase a membership and sign the women of our church up for another conference the year that God moved us from that small Baptist community to the much larger non-denominational Gateway Church. I did not attend the conference that year – giving my ticket to a friend who had received a diagnosis of breast cancer just months before our departure.

My daughter shared that she was conflicted about attending when she wanted to also attend a young women’s retreat offered at the same time of year through Gateway Church. When I asked her why she did not want to attend Women of Faith, she shared how she was interested in growing deeper in God’s Word and the flavor of the Women of Faith speakers seemed to be more testimonial than teaching on Scripture. I was impressed with this young woman’s heart, who yearns for the deep things of God and understood her concern.

I encouraged her to do what would be most beneficial to her. Then an unexpected blessing came my way in the form of a VIP pass to the Women of Faith One Day event this weekend in Dallas. I attended the power packed seven hour event and found myself blown away. Angie Smith, Christine Caine and Andy Andrews shared deeply insightful messages packed with Scripture and a strong prompting to allow God to transform your heart and mind, heal your pain and wounds from the past and move forward into your destiny and calling. Each speaker complimented the one before and the message resounded with the hearts of the women attending today.

To top it off, on the way to the auditorium, I missed my exit for 75 and ended up taking a detour driving in circles around Deep Ellum for 20 minutes trying to find my way to the Southern Methodist University campus where the event was being held. Before I got lost I was talking to God about the day when I asked, “God, would you save me a seat on the front row? Not because I deserve it more than anyone else, but just to let me know you are with me today and you have something special in mind just for me.”

When I arrived, women were packed in the foyer of the small auditorium facility. I was running a few minutes behind the doors opening which had not been my plan at all. But, still I knew I would sit in a good seat.

I found my way down a side aisle to the front and asked an usher, “Where is the VIP section?”

She smiled and said, “Anything that is not reserved in the first five rows.”

I walked down the third row to near the center of the auditorium and sat my things down in the last of four open seats in the second before the “Reserved for Staff” signs began.

God had saved me this seat. To my surprise, when the music for worship started the speakers walked in and I found myself directly behind Christine Caine, Angie Smith and Andy Andrews.

God is really sweet, isn’t he? During one of the breaks I had the opportunity to visit with a top level woman on the Women of Faith team and she asked me to make sure to connect with her.

There was this moment, during the conference, when Angie Smith asked all the mothers who had lost children to stand up. I would say a little more than a third of the women rose to their feet at that moment. She honored us in such a precious way and God really came down and ministered to some deeply wounded hearts at that moment. When we were sitting down, Angie was acknowledging how she had prayed for us and the word she heard from the Lord was “Mercy.”

As we sat, a woman visibly grieving and weeping cried out something to Angie that undid us all. We would later learn she called out, “My daughter’s name was Mercy.”

I ran into that sweet woman during the break and asked her if she was the one who cried out. She said yes and shared that her loss had only been a month prior. My heart ached for her as I felt the pain wash over me that she must have felt. I hugged her tight and told her I would keep praying for her as I felt the pain she was expressing in my own heart. And for God to so sweetly affirm that He knew what she was feeling by sharing her daughter’s name with Angie. Oh Lord, Your mercies truly are new every morning.

I heard another story of a mother who had lost a 2 year old daughter and the ministry that had been born out of her loss. Blessings and Butterflies. I realized that the Lord had ministered to a few of my bereaved friends through this woman’s ministry while I was attending a local support group during the first few years of my grief journey. How amazingly small our world really is simply amazes me.

Well, I don’t know if there is more that I can share except – if YOU have the chance to attend one – It is worth the price of admission. I didn’t have to pay it but gladly will next year. Visit their website: www.womenoffaith.com to learn more about these One Day events and when they will be coming to a city near you!

I received an email from Word Press today. An unexpected comment had come through on my Scripture and Prayer blog. As I read the comment, tears began to form in my eyes. A woman going through a difficult time woke in the middle of the night under tremendous attack.

She went to her computer and googled “Tonight’s Holy Scriptures.” Google populated a link to my blog. She reached out for prayer and she received it.

www.scriptureandprayer.com 

Will join me in praying for her?

In January I will begin a Gateway Group focused on encouraging women to find their identity through hearing God’s voice and creative expression. For me, this is the next step in a journey of self-discovery about my own identity and the way God has uniquely wired me for creativity.

In so doing I have dug into studying works of art and the artists who created them. I have also been allowing God to talk to me through a variety of creative media – movies and the books containing the stories of artists whose works I admire. Among the artists I choose to study one would find the names Rembrandt, Degas, Van Gogh, Renoir, Thomas Kinkaide, Georgia O’Keefe, Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec (whom I actually researched and studied in my one year of art at age 14). I also found myself researching the quotes of many more like Claude Monet.

Why all this focus on artists you may ask? Honestly, I do not know for sure except that something in me needs to discover why they painted. With the exception of Modern Artists, many of those considered masters from previous centuries ended up impoverished and saw little success in their work while living. It led me to questions.

What drove them to paint when most of them ended up paupers and penniless?

What were their beliefs about God and life?

And, so I write today after reading the first few chapters of a study on Rembrandt written by Greg Watts. Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn born July 15, 1606 and died October 4, 1669. As I’ve perused his paintings and begun reading the history of this seventeenth century Dutch painter I realize a bit of what I know of myself. He painted because in painting life happened for him.

He painted during a time when many artists went to Italy to study the masters like Michelangelo, Raphael and Da Vinci. Rembrandt however, stayed close to his home in the Netherlands and studied under Dutch painters as an apprentice.

Rembrandt’s work may be identified with the Baroque movement which Watts writes was “characterized by movement, strong emotion and dramatic light and colouring.”

In his lifetime the artist created a large body of work centering on his own self portrait. His last portrait of himself painted in 1669:

Mr. Watts comments on this Self Portrait, “….we see a face that has tasted not just triumph, but also disappointment and suffering. Yet we can see in him wisdom and dignity: he has come to terms with who he really is and what the true meaning of life is.”

Wisdom. Dignity. A man who has come to terms with WHO. HE. REALLY. IS. A Man who has come to terms with WHAT. THE. TRUE. MEANING. OF. LIFE. IS.

Here are two of his works that I think reflect such truth:

The first is Belshazzar’s Feast. The classic story of the handwriting appearing on the wall from the book of Daniel which predicted the fall of the Babylonian Empire to the Medo-Persian Empire.

This painting depicts the adulterous woman being brought to Jesus for condemnation. The work reflects such light around the woman, she is not disgraced or nude, but clothed in brilliant white. A picture of redemption.

Watts goes on to say “Rembrandt’s ability to penetrate what it is to be human transcends religious boundaries, and people of all faiths or no faith can be moved by it.”

Greg Watts goes on to note that Rembrandt’s education began at the age of six when he was sent to school for basic education in reading and writing. At nine he was transferred to Latin School but his interest in studies leaned only to drawing and painting. Watts writes, “…that only painting and drawing were able to fully engage his young mind.”

Which brings me to the answer to that question I asked early, why did he paint?

Rembrandt painted because that is who God created him to be. His mind and his heart fully inclined into that which he was passionate about and his paintings reflect not only his identity as an artist, but his identity in Christ as well.

Visual arts by nature are creative expression. If we turn to the Bible to gain understanding about creativity we need look first to the book of Genesis.

Genesis 1:1-3 (NKJV)
¹ In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
² The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
³ Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.

God’s Spirit hovered over the face of the waters, as the Us of God created light. If we look on into the New Testament, we find the role of Jesus in creation:

John 1:1-5 (NKJV)
¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
² He was in the beginning with God.
³ All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
⁴ In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
⁵ And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

As God the Father orchestrated the plans of creation and the Spirit hovered over the body of the created, through Jesus all things were created. Scripture assures us that NOTHING was created without Him.

Now let me ask you this, how did God create? Go back to the first verse of each passage above. He spoke things into existence and the primary way He has spoken is through Jesus. Interesting right. Hearing the voice of God is really the only prerequisite for creativity. Understanding His creative nature can lead us to open doors we might never consider in our lives.

What is our role in this creative thing that is going on around us?

Genesis 1:27 (NKJV)
²⁷ So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

We are created in the very image of God, and on earth we reflect His image and glory. If we are in Christ, He is in us and if He is in us then all of the nature of God fully resides in us. God in His very nature is creative. If His nature fully resides in us and we reflect His image on the earth then our identity in Christ, our position in Him, is the only qualifying indicator for creative expression.

Rembrandt realized this in his life’s work and I’m beginning to learn it as I develop the ability to express creatively from my identity in Christ and the things I see and hear as I relate to Him.

God created you to be creative, too. A creativity that expresses His nature and glory on this earth. Technical art skill is valuable and may be developed but without the creative nature of God at work in you art would not be possible.

Many of the “masters” have been known to say that art is a lie that reveals the truth. I choose to believe that art is a light that allows us to express the truth of God within each and every one of us. In you lies a Masterpiece of God’s design. My question for you today is this: How long will you wait to fully express it?

I buy the little matchbox size replicas of his race car. I have an Office Depot Coat sporting his sponsors and the #14 insignia. I watch NASCAR faithfully each weekend 36 weeks a year and pray to God that Tony Stewart wins the race because I enjoy it seeing him win. I tell people, “He’s my driver.”Last night I watched a very gracious Tony Stewart act like a grown up professional car owner/driver and stand up guy as he accepted his reward and addressed a group of fans and his peers in Las Vegas, Nevada. I guess you can say I am an obnoxious NASCAR fan.

Tony raced for Joe Gibbs Racing up until 2009 when he branched off with the help of Rick Hendrick to co-own his own race team Stewart-Haas Racing. Prior to that time some of the things that made Tony fun to watch happened to be his penchant for speaking his mind and his unwillingness to take any guff off of anyone. He remains the picture of a competitor by nature.

He is known as a bad boy of racing. Even last year he had an altercation at a race track in Australia that landed him in jail. And based on a 2008 Rolling Stone interview and a number of off color remarks on radio snip-its and interviews there is little question that the bad boy image rings as true as his stellar performance in this year’s chase. Though the writer of the article in Rolling Stone suggests that he only depicted one side of Stewart and there is a whole other side that is an honorable gentleman you can’t escape his on camera performance as a bad boy.

In 2004 just before he won his second NASCAR (Sprint) Nextel Cup Series a book about him was written and is available through christianbooks.com. He supports Christian Drivers in the sport like Morgan Shepherd and spent a lot of time with Joe Gibbs racing under the Joe Gibbs Racing Banner. I cannot say that Tony Stewart is a Christian, though his mother reports that she goes to church with her husband each week and prays for her son while he races.

I wrote a post called NASCAR and Perseverance a few months back when Tony won the first race of the Sprint Cup Chase at Chicagoland Speedway. The following week I watched again as Tony won the New Hampshire race as well. I later would share with my life group gals that I felt like God was redeeming time for me this year.

In 2005 Tony won the Nextel (now Sprint) Cup championship just a few short months after my son passed away. I rarely watched a race after August of that year and missed the final moments of Tony’s big win.

Still, I picked up watching my beloved NASCAR the following winter/spring when we attended the Texas race in April and watched Tony finish second only to Kasey Kahne. A great time indeed.

I pray when Tony races. I know that seems weird, but I pray for the drivers and the race crews. I pray for them. I root for the Nationwide drivers who are more prominently known for their faith like Trevor Bayne and Blake Koch. I honor people like Joe Gibbs who so boldly live out their faith and I root for the underdog Morgan Shepherd who has been racing for 40 years and somehow gets his Victory in Jesus team to the tracks for the Nationwide series each week.

It is not lost on me that an invocation in Jesus’ name is offered before each race and most drivers honor that time by bowing their heads and closing their eyes. That chaplains at the track pray with drivers, offer them the opportunity to do Bible study and mentor drivers along the way.

I sometimes think that Tony struggled so hard in those years after 2005 because something he was doing didn’t mesh – there was no favor, just sheer determination.

So, come back with me to this year’s chase. A win at Chicago and New Hampshire boosted him forward and then he won at Martinsville and again at our very own Texas track. My husband literally thought I had lost my mind – he even told the dog I am crazy, though he is the one talking to the dog. I whooped and hollered and jumped and celebrated each win. Now, let me just say that I began to pray at Martinsville, “Lord would You allow Tony Stewart to win this race, and if not Tony then the one who would give You the most glory to win the chase.”

By the last race in at Homestead-Miami the standings had landed in a dead heat. Tony lingered just 3 points behind Carl Edwards. The two started a little back in the pack very close to one another. It would be a race to the finish and in the end a champion would be crowned. But, just a few laps in, Kurt Busch lost his transmission in the #22 car and Tony’s car collected damage from debris that had been deflected into his grill off the track.

After a few lengthy runs down pit road during the caution, Tony’s car restarted in the 38th position. Though the grill of his car had to be replaced that radiator had not sustained any damage – a miracle by the account of Larry McReynolds who is a NASCAR commentator and former crew chief.

He drove back up to 9th before pitting again and then restarted back in the 20s. In the meantime, Carl Edwards ran his #99 Ford up front most all day and received the additional bonus point for leading the most laps by race end. However, Tony continued to push through the obstacles he experienced on the race track

After a number of cautions and passing more than 100 cars to regain positions near the front of the pack on multiple occasions Tony took the lead in the waning laps of the race and beat out a very loose Jimmy Johnson for the race win which led to a tie between he and Carl Edwards for the championship title. The tie breaker would be determined by who had the most wins. With five total wins in the last ten races, Tony easily clenched the title spot over his competitor Carl Edwards who had not won a single race in the entire season.

Still, Carl Edwards walked out to Tony as he drove down the straightaway parallel to pit road and congratulated him. He later told a reporter, “I told my wife I would be the best loser that NASCAR ever had.”

As I watched Tony cross the finish line, I praised God for answering my prayers and letting me enjoy the win of my favorite race car driver’s championship season. And then, something totally unexpected that I have never seen before happened during the post race interview with Tony Stewart.

When asked about his emotions after winning both the race and the chase for the championship, Tony said: “Oh God, thank the Lord for this one. Man I’m telling you it’s been a tough summer and a tough fall for us, and you’ve got to believe in something and the Man upstairs (gestures with a finger to the sky) and He held this rain off long enough, just long enough for us to get this job done so this is for Sprint and for all these fans up here who stuck it out all weekend here…”

His acceptance speech was peppered with gratitude and graciousness toward his co-owners, Darian Grubb (his outgoing crew chief) and especially to Carl Edwards of whom he said, “You are not a loser, you will always be a winner.”

Worth every moment, and a reminder that God answers prayers in the most unexpected way. I’ve never heard Tony Stewart speak of God before in all the years I have observed him in NASCAR, but I heard him that night after I asked God all those weeks to allow the racer to win that would give Him the glory. Tony Stewart won and did. Thank you, Lord for even these little things that remind me of Your love for me.