Made for Joy

All Angel's hosted an Artist's Retreat on Friday night through Saturday afternoon, led by a wonderful man who's name is Dick and who felt like a relation of Bob Ross (painter of happy little trees).  It was an intense, worthwhile time.  

God seems to be bringing up all my past issues in the first weeks of my arrival here and making me deal with them head-on.  Last week's sermon on gender roles in the church brought about an experience of God that left me feeling free and full of joy about being His daughter, fully loved.  

This weekend the Artist's retreat felt like God was trying, very gently, to show me how my identity as an artist is broken.  It was intense, and I'm tired of crying, but now feels like such a relief, since it was such hard work trying to pretend like it wasn’t broken.  I’m also tired of the ambivalence I feel surrounding what it is I’m trying to do.   

God seemed to say, ‘Yes, Joanna, you do need some healing in this area.  But it’s going to be a joyful, happy sort of thing.   You were made for joy.  Please let Me speak some things to you about who you are.”

So I am waiting with expectation of how He is going to do this, like clay in the hands of a Master.