Well I never...

Tonight I witnessed something I cannot remember experiencing before and I was so awed to be part of it.

I have a few friends who sometimes pray 'Lord, if I never receive anything or hear from you again I will still be content'. I don't personally feel willing or able to pray this, but in the realm of tonight's events I gladly say that to have experienced this sign of God just once is enough for a lifetime.

I was at a collective meeting for a creative group within my Church here in Whiteinch. We listened to two songs and part way into the first, a fast moving song, I began to see a vision of a sketchpad with its leaves breaking away like sheaves of a book blowing in the wind each flowing out and screwing up into shapes like birds that took form and flew away from the book and as they became birds they rose vertically. I could not keep up with their number. The picture swirled into other shapes and pictures. I attempted to record the first I have described above, turning the leaf, I then moved onto a new sheet of paper to attempt to get down another picture that stayed in my mind.

The second song came to an end and I finalised my final touches to the second sketch. We begun to reenter the room.

I glanced to my right and Jinty appeared to have a very similar formation of three birds in coming off the page in the same direction and lifting upward in movement. I couldn't believe it, she had the same image and various themes of the vision I had had too. Hers differed in that the birds were made of paper and each bird had gradually more of its body coming off the page but her birds too were headed in an upward direction, also adding a multi- dimensional dynamic to it. I turned my sketch over to show the whole group that I had the same vision.

My own sketch wasn't immediately obvious but as we discussed our two pictures it became more and more clear that the Lord had spoken the same message to us both.

It was an en-awed moment and unlike hearing stories of a move of God or what God has done or shown for another person or stranger this was new territory, certainly for me. I am awed.

I continue to audaciously pray that God combines the creative and the prophetic in me, that an item I offer someone would be as though God had designed it for that person, because our God loves to give good gifts to His children, so why wouldn't he use me to be His hands; to incarnate His design.

I must add that although I have been sharing pictures and doing give-aways for years the use of my artistic skills has been all but sporadically utilised, it is unearthing a whole new way of relating to the Lord and redeems to years developing skills in art that long seemed irrelevant to my 'career' in community evangelism.