Devotional Art ~ My Portion

Thank you for coming along on my journey of daily prayer ponderings through this series of Devotional Art. In the writing, art, sketches and doodles, I hope that you will be inspired to connect to the heart of God in creative ways. As I share my personal journey, I pray that yours will be inspired and strengthened as well. Blessings - Pattie Ann Hale



“LORD, you alone are my portion...” - Psalm 16:5

Jesus, I come to you this morning with no preconceptions of who I think you are. Will you give me fresh vision today of You? The aching of a soul for a Savior - a busy one hunting for a resting place. I need you, Sanctuary... for you are my Portion.

What does it mean for the Lord to be our sole Portion?

In my life, I often find that I’m trying to take all the parts of my life and make sense of them... seems I would grow out of this but isn’t it what we all do? I try to look at all the compartments, the jobs, the hats I wear, the people in my life, all my random thoughts and dreams and problems.... and I try to put it all into a composition that is lovely... I work the puzzle continually as the image changes and changes and is forever morphing into something else. All these parts - these portions are life... my life.

Last night at the studio I painted a huge oil painting. On the four ft. square canvas I applied rows and rows of random colors straight onto the canvas from the tubes... I new the mixing would come together because the oils stay open for so long. I had no apprehension about just throwing the colors on. This canvas is so large I could be in the painting... feel the colors and lines and blendings wrapping me as I painted. The colors morphed and changed becoming messy in places and lovely in places. I moved with it, through the frustrations and the little pleasing joys. As I dragged the brush through the four ft. mass of paint, a simple line would reveal many colors. It was like a rainbow line of promise, that through every undercolor and every space I passed through, beauty would be revealed in some way. Life is like that... through the messy and the busy and the frustrating and the nice places - as we begin to just move with it - through it - it reveals an unexpected beauty in the midst of chaos. The parts do mesh.

The painting rests on the easel in my studio... still very chaotic and random. As I painted last night, I kept trying to bring the random colors, the mass of lines, the almost gaudy forms into a whole... to force the portions into a lovely whole. It didn’t work and I realized near midnight that if I kept doing that to those sensitive oils then I would only have a mess. I had to walk away from it. The medium is teaching me patience.

So in my calm waking this morning my one narrow road of thought is to have Jesus Only. Oh how I complicate things... He is my Portion... the only One allotment I need to bring everything else into a beautiful composition. I am no longer mine. It is not I who live. My parts are nothing compared to even a glimpse of His Wholeness. It is Christ who now lives. To grasp that... everyday... every moment... Every thing to equal the One Thing - that I may gaze upon His Beauty. That to know Him may be the one sum of all my parts.


1 comment:

Vicki said...

This is so beautiful and, for me, more timely than I can describe. Thank you so much for sharing your journey and your heart - it ministers to me so much!