JoDee Luna's Blog, page 16

Fresh Starts: Invitations to Change

My favorite part of a painting is the beginning. It’s fun to see a face form on canvas—kind of like meeting a person for the first time. My recent painting […]

Warrior Princess Mask Featured in Somerset Studio

Today I went to Barnes and Nobles with my husband and noticed the current issue of Somerset Studio magazine.  I had submitted a piece of artwork last spring for this […]

Warrior Princess Painting Featured in Somerset Studio Magazine.

Today I went to Barnes and Nobles with my husband and noticed the current issue of Somerset Studio magazine.  I had submitted a piece of artwork last spring for this […]

The Traveler: An Acrylic Painting and Inspirational Message

Have you every felt like a lonely traveler on a sojourn through life—always searching yet never finding what will once and for all fill that empty ache in your heart? […]

Unconditional Surrender

“I put no conditions on my surrender.” I mumbled those words after wrestling with something I feared God wanted me to do, but I dreaded. “Lord, you’re really not asking […]

Portfolios Posted on New Refrain Website

Rebuilding this creativity website has reminded me of the different forms of creativity I have tried and enjoyed. Check out my portfolio collections: Acrylic Paintings, Masquerade Masks, Mixed Media, Rusty […]

Blossom Featured on Create with Joy Website

What an honor for Blossom to be featured on this week’s Create with Joy’s Inspire Me Monday post. Website creator and owner also left a very encouraging comment: “What a […]

Welcome To Refrain from the Identical

Refrain from the Identical is for people like you and me who love to dabble in many different kinds of creativity.

Blossom

Welcome to the first post of the new Refrain from the Identical website.

The Seer

“And a great hand reached out of the dark and grasped mine for a moment, mightily and tenderly.

I said to myself, ‘The Veil between, though very dark, is very thin.’” -George MacDonald, Phantastes

What stunning imagery MacDonald uses to describe God’s tenderness towards us.

So often I see the veil as thick, impermeable, shrouding my sense of nearness to God.

I’m reading through the Old Testament book of Daniel and marveling at a man who saw through the veil. This seer had visions and dreams and was able to interpret the dreams of the Babylonian king. For Daniel, the spiritual world was as real as the natural.

Yet it isn’t Daniel’s spiritual gifting that impresses me the most. It’s his courage to stand up for his convictions. Although held captive in a foreign land, Daniel never bowed the knee to a pompous king who demanded complete allegiance. No, he never wavered in his beliefs, even though death seemed inevitable because he would not.

I want to be like Daniel—the same person in public as I am in the quietness of my art room when alone with God.

I long for Daniel’s courage to overwhelm my cowardice, that pitiful part of me that tends to cave in to the strongest voice in the room. Daniel inspires me to look past what my earthly eyes can see and to trust in what I cannot see.

This painting, The Seer, is for all of those brave Daniels out there who do not bow the knee. May your strength inspire us to live as if the veil were thin.

Share this: