Even THEN, God Loved Me

Stairway to Heaven, watercolor

My attic is growing art. It can be the only explanation. I found this art work, and a whole batch of others. That brings my pile of art going to NY for auction to 270 pieces. I won't get much per piece, but the sheer volume ought to earn me gas money for the trip. Hopefully, it will bring many people joy.

Any way, this painting surprises me. I was newly married, with no kids, and not a Christian, yet the painting depicts me on a stairway to heaven. There is a mother and child in the lower portion. Strange. At at this stage of my life, I still thought I hated kids and certainly didn't want any.

Dogs and horses have always reigned strongly as my favorite creatures, so it is not surprising they are heading to Heaven with me. Then there are three trees, with the one larger tree in the middle. I am certain that is my subconscious mind depicting the crucifixion, with Jesus between the two thieves.

It is a prophetic painting. Six years later, I would come to know the Lord. That same year of my salvation, I had my son Anders, and realized I LOVED being a mother beyond anything else I had done or could do on earth. Not only did I discover I LIKED kids, I became an Occupational Therapist whose entire career focused on helping children. Later, I became an art teacher to children, and formed a whole bunch of clubs in my home for children. Now, I am a sidewalk counselor at an abortion center urging mamas to save their babies. I feel a deep love for those children, and even those tortured mamas.

How did my hand know to produce all this that was yet to be in my future?

This painting reminds me that even when I didn't know God at all, He knew me. Despite my terrible sins and rejection of God and His commands, He loved me even then, pursued me even then. I was so wretched, and so filthy...like the city in my painting above that I appear to be escaping. Even then, God was leading me to a place of life, where my lungs could fill not with the smog and corruption of the world, but with the Holy Spirit. He knew the plans He had for me, and was faithful to complete them.

I cannot tell you how grateful I am that I took the first step on that stairway when I put my trust in Him.
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Jeremiah 29:11 

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Psalm 37:37 

Mark the blameless and behold the upright, for there is a future for the man of peace.

Isaiah 40:29 

He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.

1 John 3:1-2 

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.