Unfamiliar Paths

I asked my art class of young girls what things they wanted to draw. Then I wrote a list with each little girl's desire, and have been ticking off the items each week in our art class. One girl is crazy about dragons. I am not really a big dragon fan, nor do I think I have EVER drawn one. However, childhood is a time for dreams coming true, and this was a simple dream I could make reality for the little girl. Another child wanted a volcano. We decided dragons and volcanoes would work well together, and the girls agreed that should be the subject for this week's class.

Dragons are not my usual fare, so I asked the girl what dragon we should draw. She gave me the name of a favorite, Nightwing. I researched Nightwing on the internet,  and also found a fantasy scene that dragons might live in. Then I spent yesterday practicing the dragon in the volcano scene. This will not be easy for the girls, but with the grace of God, I think we can pull it off.

I did not expect to enjoy drawing dragons as much as I did. Had the little girl not asked for it, I might have spent my entire life as an artist never drawing a dragon. I considered this in light of the path God is currently leading me. Choosing on my own to be diagnosed with breast cancer, and face the rather daunting prospects before me for the next year would never have happened.

However, having little choice, I am embarking on this path. In the process, I am discovering many of the same truths I discovered complying with the little girl's suggestion that we draw a dragon.

1. If you have learned to trust God in the small things, you have all you need to trust God in the harder things. In fact, in some ways it is easier to trust God in the hard things because you have NO DOUBT you cannot do it on your own power.
2. When taking a path you would never have taken on your own, you learn you can do things you never thought you would, or could do. Sometimes being forced to walk a road you would rather not walk is the only way to learn you CAN.
3. Every new step taken in faith brings unexpected blessings. The less familiar the path you are urged to travel, the greater the trust required, and the greater assurance you are guided by something greater than yourself.
4. There is immense contentment and joy that you submitted to His will, not your will, because the promise of what awaits at the completion is so glorious.

Unfamiliar paths are frightening. For example, I was terrified when I began volunteering as a sidewalk counselor at the abortion center. Yet, as more and more women turned to Christ and chose life because we were there to speak for their babies, it became my favorite activity! In fact, I go there this morning as I do every Monday.

By the way, my book about the first year of true stories at the sidewalk is only 99 cents the next couple of days. For less than the price of McDonald's fries, you can learn the effective strategies and joys of having a part in saving babies! (A whole lot better for your heart than the fries.) Please share this link (click here.) I think the promo begins at 9 a.m. Pacific time today.

I liked how my dragon turned out. I can't wait to guide the little girls in drawing one themselves!
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Isaiah 42:16
I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth. These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them.