Learning to Listen

At the risk of sounding bizarre, I want to share how a couple of my pieces came into being.  This first one, entitled 'The Father's Heart', began with a totally empty palette. I mean, I had no idea what I was going to do, I only knew I had to listen to what God wanted.  I could sense He wanted me to speak of His gift to us, salvation, through His Son, Jesus.  I pulled out my black felt and began to put on some wisps of grey, for sky. It was all wrong, so replaced it with hunks of a wet-wool felted mishap. I wanted to convey the violence of that horrible/beautiful day.  The cross is made from a piece of very textured silky fabric that is heavily stitched, like the beatings that Jesus took for us, masking the body He once inhabited.  I could see in my mind's eye, a crown of thorns made from a piece of yarn that I cut in jagged peaks, with red wool roving coming from the thorns that tore His brow.  The drops of blood made their way down the rugged cross to the green organza of everlasting life, that He purchased for us.  How precious those drops are.  I heard God say, 'Make white flowers, lots of them.'  So, I burned flowers from shimmery white organza..the purity of His Church. I heard Him say, 'Now sew them together with white thread. Link them all, for they are all Mine."  I felt to put a heart in the the middle of the cross. It's a trinket I picked up along the way, and seems perfect. Then I heard the words, 'Lover's Knot'. I had no idea what that was, so of course, I Googled it!  It is an actual knot! So I braided 3 strands of shiny floss together, the unity of the Trinity, and tied the heart on the the Lover's Knot where the cross pieces intersected.  The Bible says that Jesus came from the Heart of the Father, isn't that so beautiful? Then the cord winds down the cross to the Church.  From there, the life of the Holy Spirit springs up in silver/blue strands, giving glory and honour to Jesus and the Father.  When I stopped hearing instruction, I knew I was finished. The piece is not an easy piece to look at, but I felt it was an important progression in my work and wanted to share it with you.

The second piece that I want to share is entitled, 'Streams of Glory'.  I felt God gave me a picture in my mind of a scene from heaven.  It was all dark and I could see wavy streams of coloured light coming toward me. The colours were all different neons, so vivid and other-worldly.  At the time, I felt the streams of light were connected to the worship music we were hearing during our church service. I sensed that each colour was a particular song that we were singing, and at any time during that song, we could grab the stream and be pulled into the glory. Then God showed me that at any time during our normal day, whether we are cleaning, shopping, driving, at our workplace, anywhere, the glory streams are available. All we need to do is reach out in the heavenlies and, in faith, grab on to all that God has for us. God loves us all so much and has made a way for us to receive all that we need.
So I sat at my sewing machine and put together what I saw.  I used a piece of silk as the base and sewed neon coloured streams coming from the gold spray-painted glory on the side.  I cut the edges of the piece in waves, as I often get pictures and thoughts from God in waves.  I didn't want a clean edge around, so sewed in a fairly tattered fringe, as I perceive the things of God with no real edges.  Again, this is a bit bizarre, but such a heavenly-inspired piece that I wanted to share with you.