Ever had the urge to pull out all your hair when pressed up against something so hard? Honestly, that is what I felt when I sat down in front of my computer to build my own website. By all means I consider myself an incredibly intelligent woman, and I am all in on challenges of creating new things, but I am by no means technically minded, and definitely not computer savvy… Let’s say we do not speak the same language.
Can anyone relate… If not, simply sympathize?
Deep down I'm asking what is this thing pushing so hard against me? I began to see it as what I would describe as the "Tiger” I wrestle with while trying to figure out how to deal with things that are overwhelming... in this case technology, specifically multi-media.
This was my challenge…
The Lord had put on my heart that what I express in my art is meant to make a difference in people’s lives, and I truly believe it. So many times I've been blessed with people sharing what the Lord had moved in them as they watched me paint. I've had people come with tears streaming down their checks saying "I have to have that piece what ever the cost" because the Lord is at work. He has given me multiple prophetic words that I am to "place my work into the hands of others", and that I am to "pour out tangibly from the things I love to do". Then it gets tough... I have had many words of new mediums and “multi-media”
OMG!... Multi-media… that can be a scary word! I feel at home with a paint brush in my hand, not a computer mouse!
You have to remember that my generation was not raised with multi-media actually in our DNA, like it is today. A while back you could choose if working with a computer was something you wanted to learn about and pursue. I guess that puts me a bit older then I would like to admit, but I never stepped into technology.
Bit by bit God was showing me that in order to get to my goal of loving on others with my art I would need to set up a website. For me, that was incredibly overwhelming!
All I could do was to cling to that wonderful truth that, ‘All things are possible with God!’
So who was this Tiger?
Here I was up against what I saw as a huge Tiger, and he was going to eat me alive. My insides were screaming “Run away! You are going to be devoured!” I really had to struggle with my desire to simply say, “No more. This is not me. It is way beyond my abilities”.
But God is good, and He took me through an incredible mind shift where I realized the Tiger wasn’t this huge beast of technology to subdue and tame. I wasn't taking down a mountain of today's multi-media living that was up against me, that was so threatening. But the Tiger I was to deal with was my own mind sets on the inside of me that God was unveiling and ready to change.
The Tiger took hold in my own fears and insecurities that made me feel so small and unable. Somehow they had grown so far out of proportion that they had the power to freeze me up. Like a little mouse scrambling in front of a flash light that shines on a wall and appears to be a huge dominating monster that stops us dead in our tracks. I was frozen, but God walked me through each of those fearful mindsets, enabling me to recognize and let go of all the lies that screamed out “You can’t!”, and He brought things back into His perspective with the truth that, “I am His Special Daughter. He has given me all I need, and I can”.
My perspective has been rewired. I am no longer reacting to every threat that stirs up from the Tigers in my life, but I'm responding with God standing right there with me. He gave me a whole new pair of glasses to see things that seem threatening (like technology, multi-media), and they now have become my very own vehicles that God is to bring in so many blessings with. He is actually training me to take hold of that… I am now walking alongside that once threatening Tiger of technology I wanted to run from. Metaphorically I guess I can say, we both stand in full authority, we regularly walk together, and we will continually enhance each other.
It’s worth the process…
Not to say that it all happened in an instant, suddenly making my challenge "Happy go Lucky”… it definitely was a process. Through almost a year of more trial and error then I want to count, and challenge after challenge, of continual pushing on through, I sit here now in front of my own website so I can share my art with you, with the messages and meanings each piece carries. I get to put them in your hands. This was my vision in the first place.
I know in my heart that we are in a season where the arts are raising to actually change culture… My passion is to loose creativity into people’s lives that will ultimately heal and transform our world.
Be blessed
Be healed
Be transformed,
Laura