More accurately, the miracle of the painting of the hay bales--but that is a bit long for a title. Let me show you how much our Heavenly Father loves us and prepares the way to see that love expressed in our lives and in the lives of others.
It is a bit of a story, so settled in:
It all started in the month before our mission to Arkansas. I told Gary while we were traveling around the western states that I wanted to buy one "nice" piece of art of an Arkansas landscape as a memento of our mission in Arkansas. He agreed. Immediately, upon our arrival in Arkansas, I started looking for that certain piece of art work. Early in our time in Ft. Smith, we went on a P-day activity to a local art museum and I looked through their prints to find that "perfect" landscape, but no luck. I talked to the volunteer there and she suggested that I come back often and review what they have because it changed from time to time. Most of their prints were done by local artists which made that even more appealing.
And the search continued. After a few months, I fell in love with the hay bales--as you know if you have read this blog over the last 18 months. I took hundreds of pictures of them at all different seasons. It so reminded me of Arkansas and I determined that my landscape piece of art must include these hay bales. So, our search got a bit more specific. I started asking people who lived in Ft. Smith if they had any ideas. Some sent me web sites of local artists, but none were quite what I wanted.
I started telling the other senior missionaries about my quest and asked them to also look. Some of them were much more interested in stopping at local flea markets and art shows than me, so people throughout our mission were on the hunt for THAT picture. Months rolled by.......
When we had been there almost a year, I found this picture hanging in a restaurant we went to with the Ellises--
I loved it although it was bigger than I wanted and didn't have the greens and blues of Arkansas that were such a part of our love for this pretty place. I got the artist's name and discovered that he was a somewhat famous Arkansas painter who was based in Little Rock. He didn't have anything similar in his current prints for sale on his site and his style had changed a bit since this painting was done. But I might be able to get a smaller print of this one if I needed to. At least, I might have an option. And we continued the hunt.....
Then, near the near of May of this year, we transported the Van Buren/Alma Elders up to Centerton for a doctor's appointment. On the way home, we were talking about member meals and the interesting things that they had eaten. In a roundabout way that these types of discussion can happen, Elder Tonks made a comment about the house where the wife was an artist. "Wait, what? There is an artist in Alma??" By the end of the car ride, he had reached out to her and got her permission to share her number with us and I had reached out to her. She sent me this and asked if this was like what I wanted:
YES, YES, and YES!! I told her that if I had seen these in an art store I would have bought them. They reminded me of the prairies and fields of Arkansas with the wildflowers (a bonus) and the hills and the blue sky with clouds. It was what I had been looking for this entire time.
Over the next couple of days, we talked about details and she agreed to paint one for me (and a few weeks later, one for Sister Ellis as well.) She asked me what size I wanted and I said 16" by 20" or so and I told her when we were leaving and she thought that would work for her. This was the end of May of 2024.
I couldn't believe it. I had found "my" painting and the artist was a member of the Church in the Ft. Smith stake. What a perfect memento for our service in this sweet stake of Zion! A sweet tender mercy for me. Isn't our Heavenly Father so GOOD and so mindful of us! I was already planning my blog post when I picked up my painting--this live example of how God loves me!
Have you heard the scripture in Isaiah 55: 8-9: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
While I was focused on a tiny little desire of my heart being granted by God--He had something else entirely in mind.....
The summer past by--sometimes slowly and other times quickly with very little contact from the artist other than some casual updates about when the canvas she ordered arrived and that life had become unexpectedly busy for her. At the beginning of September, we exchanged texts and I reminded her when we would be leaving and she was hopeful to be done with both paintings in time for us to pick them up. She would let me know...
Gary was worried about how to fit these paintings in our car but I reassured him that they would probably just roll up into a tube that we could slip into our car somewhere. I didn't want to ship them home. This was my "sought after" painting!
The Friday before we left, she reached out to set a time to deliver the paintings to us before we left. I felt a great desire to see the place where she had painted "my painting" and as politely as I could ask if it might be possible to pick the paintings up at her house and perhaps take a picture of her in her studio for my blog. She agreed although she said she didn't want to make us "come all the way out here to pick them up." She didn't know that we loved "coming way out" in the countryside of Arkansas.
We set pickup at noon on Wednesday, the 18th. I was so happy to being getting "my painting." She lived in a cute neighborhood outside of Alma, Arkansas, and we enjoyed the pretty drive and the railroad tracks that we got to travel by for some of the route.
The Childers have a lovely home and Cheryl was warm and inviting when the three of us arrived.
Her studio-- (we forgot to take a picture with our painting on her easel):
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There is the small hay bale that she shared with me
over text. |
She is currently focused on bird pictures and typically she makes small works of art not larger pieces like the ones I wanted. However, she had wanted to try doing bigger pieces and loved the challenge of it.
She was wrapping up our painting in the entry way, while I had stepped back into her studio to get some photos. As I stepped back into the entry way, I caught her saying to Gary that she and her husband were getting approved to foster/adopt through the state. At first, I thought she was talking about dogs, since she had a few dogs already, but as I listened, I realized that she was talking about adoption. Gary said later that I returned at just the right time, because he wasn't used to "adoption" conversations--that was more my thing. It turned out that they were going to have their home visit--the final step in their approval process with the state--in a couple of days. With Jena, we are somewhat a walking commercial for adoption but when I mentioned that we had four children who were adopted, she asked if she could ask us some questions. Gary said--Don't get her started--she can talk about this for hours. She wasn't scared off and said that she actually had some questions she was wondering about that she would love to talk to an LDS family about. And this began an hour long conversation about adoption, sealings, and other topics on her mind. I shared a few stories with her that I have rarely shared but felt strong promptings to do so. There were tears and as we hugged at the end--we knew that it was not an accident that we were there together on that day. The spirit was unrestrained in that time together and when we left, we knew that we had been about the Lord's errand that day.
I don't know how God did it---His ways are not my ways!! But I felt His hand in it again and again... and the painting will always remind me of this holy experience. (And we are now Facebook friends and connected through texting so I will keep up with her adventures as they hopefully are able to adopt a sibling group meant for their family in the future.)
And that, my friends, is how God loves me and Cheryl and all of us! And that is a miracle of the hay bales!
And a final note: this is how they traveled home with us,,,
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| But we made it work! |
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