As I mentioned earlier this week in a post dedicated to creative devotions with our children…a very special time of year has begun! It is known as Lent or the Lenten Season.
If you are new to the idea of Lent. Lent (the word comes from the Middle English word for “spring”) is a six-week season in the Christian year prior to Easter. Technically, Lent comprises the 40 days before Easter, not counting the Sundays, or 46 days in total. These six weeks are a very, very special time to draw closer to our Savior as we prepare for our celebration of His Resurrection on Easter Sunday.
Although Lent did originate in the Catholic Church…it is also celebrated in different ways by many Evangelical and Reformed Protestant Christians as well. I have shared before that I grew up Catholic…so I grew up with celebrating Lent. While I am no longer Catholic (I left in 1996), I am still blessed by spending the 46 days of Lent and Holy Week to draw closer to Jesus Christ our Savior and Lord!
I embrace spending these weeks really focusing on our Lord Jesus’ life, teachings, and the incredible sacrifice He made for our sins. One of the ways that I am drawing closer to Jesus during Lent this year is to spend less time surfing the Net and doing lots of visiting on Facebook and more time digging into and savoring the Gospel of John beginning in chapter one and working my way slowly through it so that the week before Easter (Holy Week), I am beginning chapter thirteen in which Jesus celebrates Passover with His disciples for the last time before He is arrested.
I am so blessed by this special time of walking with Jesus as I soak in the amazing words of our Savior in this Gospel…taking this time and breathing in anew this amazing love letter to the people then, now, in the future…and to me! To have the Word of God available to me and be able to drink in His Message from my heavenly Father, Spirit and Savior is amazing when I think about it! It really is the Good News! The best and most important, life transforming news we have ever, or will ever, read!
In addition to reading, reflecting and studying the journey of Jesus in the Gospel of John, I have decided to renew a very special form of prayer and reflection that I have enjoyed so much a few years ago and it really helped me to fully embrace, pray, and do a lot of listening to the Lord. What’s funny is that I didn’t even know it had a special name until I read about an amazing woman of prayer, Michelle Pendergrass, in an article over at Joyful Mothering called Visual Prayer.
As soon as I saw this photograph of “Wait for the promise of the Father” , (which she graciously gave me permission to share) my heart leapt within me! I connected so much with this creative and very special form of prayer. And the name of this prayer spoke so powerfully to my soul during this time of waiting on the Lord that I am going through in my own life. It was an answered prayer for me! I am going to use Michelle’s own words to define it because they describe it so well!
Visual Prayer is a way to connect to God through our natural desire to create. By combining several artistic values that may overlap each other including (but not limited to) scrapbooking, painting, drawing, doodling, and countless other visual and kinetic art techniques, we are able to commune with God in silence through creation.
Visual Prayer offers tangible comfort and peace in our sometimes intangible faith.
After reading Michelle’s guest post on Joyful Mothering, I knew that this was the special form of prayer I had experienced a couple of years ago and had helped me to pray through some things and was such a powerful and healing experience for me and I had to learn more about her story and visual prayer. So I clicked over on the links to, her very special website, visualprayer.com.
There I found all of the artwork you see here are pictures of one of my very favorites of her visual prayers which is called “Wait for the promise of the Father”. These amazing photographs of the visual prayer that helped re-ignite something inside me to experience visual prayer, in my own way, once again. As tears streamed down my face I knew I needed to begin visually praying again. I also knew I wanted to get to know Michelle, so I found her Visual Prayer Facebook page and began following her there and left her a direct message pouring out what a powerful effect her prayer art has had on me and a little about how healing it had been for me a few years ago.
She answered my note and we became Facebook friends and I have found such joy in getting acquainted with this special lady and talking art and Visual prayer with her. She has been such an encouragement to me as I take up this special form of creative Visual prayer that I put away a while back and I have been able to encourage her and pray for her along with the wonderful community of her friends and visual pray-ers.
During these days and weeks of Lent, I am slowly creating my own special visual prayer using multi-media art as my creative medium, as I pray and drink in the journey of our Savior through the Gospel of John and this time instead of just have the visual prayer image rest in my mind’s eye I am going to prayerfully create it.
While Michelle shares that Visual Prayer became a powerful way for her to connect with God because she struggled to stay focused on praying using other more traditional forms of praying…I am comfortable with many forms of prayer. For me, it is a very intimate way of connecting with God and praying through something that I have trouble putting into words…as a creative thinker, sometimes it is easier for me to express the cries of my heart using Visual Prayer than struggling to find the words I need to cry out to God…and in the process He ministers to my heart and mind through that medium too.
Isn’t it amazing how God connects us with sisters in Christ and answer our prayers in such unexpected ways?! I am in awe of how He works in every aspect of our lives!
Once I have Visually Prayed my way through the Gospel of John during Lent and I feel my own Visual Prayer Creation is ready to be seen and shared with you, I promise to share pictures with you. It will be much simpler than the Michelle’s…it has been a long time since I have done it…but it will be the prayer of my heart using the gifts the God who created me gave me and it fills me with joy to draw closer to my Savior in this way.
I encourage you to stop over and enjoy the breath-taking photographs of her prayers in her gallery at visualprayer.com. Be sure to leave her some comment love while you are there!
And why not try something new and creative like visual prayer during your own time of remembering the sacrifice Jesus made for us as we prepare to celebrate His Resurrection?
And speaking of spending special time in His Word…are you looking for a group of women to encourage you and hold you accountable for spending time in God’s Word every day? Whether you want to reflect on one verse or passages or chapters…that is up to you. What’s important, and so awesome, is how spending time reading and resting in His Word transforms lives! If you would like to join this group that helps with accountability using encouragement not judgement…I welcome you to request to join the group! Its called “Unwrapping His Grace- Together in Prayer & His Word”. If you want to join just for Lent or for the year…we would love to have you join us!
Every week I plan to share more ways that God is drawing me closer Him through the 46 days leading up to Easter in this “Drawing Closer to our Savior” series!
Don’t miss out…Take a moment to sign up for the free updates through your E-Reader or in your email so you don’t miss a single post! And be sure to join the Unwrapping His Grace Facebook Community so you can join in the daily conversation as we “do life” together or follow me on my new Twitter page and my brand new Pinterest Page!!
Now its your turn…
I would love to hear how you are drawing closer to Him! Please share your own thoughts and ideas in the comments below!
Drawing Closer to our Savior,
Mary Joy
All photography is by Michelle Pendergrass and is copyrighted and shared here with her permission.
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