Standing in the church parking
lot I glanced across the road to the tree line along a pasture. The setting sun
illuminated a fringe of branch tips in a remarkable way. I tried to capture the
moment with my cell phone, but it was one of those situations where a photo doesn’t
do it justice. I wondered how I could depict the sparkling scene on a canvas.
Since I’ve had a brush in my hand
more often, I spend time watching the way light moves across the grass in the early
morning and how it glints off the side of the pine trees. I get lost in the
clouds studying how lights and darks interact with each other. It doesn’t have
to be a dramatic scene. Just one cloud in the sky will distract me with its own
unique signature of puffy white and billowing dark.
As I’ve followed more landscape artists
on social media, what I’ve noticed is most don’t select well known scenes to depict. They make a career out of really seeing and painting the commonplace.
It almost always has to do with
the light. So, in the past few months, I’ve been often searching for the brilliance of it and how
it’s moving—hoping, hoping to somehow capture
it in a bottle.
I still have a lot to learn
and a long way to go.
Spiritually speaking, I’m also
trying to keep the mindset of looking for light—to hunt
for it in the everyday happenings we all encounter. Despite annoying and
sometimes tedious situations, if we have the mindset to seek the light, we’ll often
see the flash and shimmer of our mighty God at work right where we are.
Of all the
verses about light I could choose, one strongly comes to mind. “The Lord is my
light and my salvation—whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of
whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1). There have been times I clung to this
verse with everything in me— like when I had cancer twenty-one years ago. In
times of crisis, we are intent on consistently seeking God’s light, but as a
crisis abates, our will to do so may ebb.
Let’s renew
our determination to be on the lookout for a glimmer of God no matter where we
find ourselves. We may not capture it with a brush and paint, but we can for
sure be encouraged as we hold the glow in our hearts.
Beverly Varnado is the author of several small town romances from Anaiah Press including her latest, A Season for Everything. All are available at Amazon. A memoir, Faith in the Fashion District, from Crosslink Publishing is available wherever books are sold. Also consider her other books, Give My Love to the Chestnut Trees and Home to Currahee. She also has an Etsy Shop, Beverly Varnado Art.
To explore the web version of One Ringing Bell, please visit bev-oneringingbell.blogspot.com
Beverly Varnado copyright 2021