Abundant Life, oil on canvas 24″x36″

On Good Friday this year, I painted a Cross. Creating art on this special Holy Day has always been significant to me. It takes almost 2 weeks for oil paintings to dry, so this particular painting was resting on my studio easel for a number of days. As I came and went, I would see it, and it seemed to say to me that it wasn’t a completed painting. Yes, my paintings let me know when they are done, and I try hard to pay attention to their message.

One morning as I was looking at my painting, I sensed that I needed to add a lamp stand on the cross beam. I started what I thought would be a golden lamp stand, and as my brush touched the canvas I knew the lamp stand would be a Menorah made of living olive branches. Then my painting rested, and I realized it still wasn’t done! The olive branch needed to transform into a grape vine laden with fruit and wrapped around the base of the Cross. That is what I painted, and once again I understood that the painting was not quite finished. It just needed a little more, 7 stalks of perfectly ripe wheat. Now the work of the Cross is completed! This Cross shows the abundant life that Jesus promises us; a life illumined by His sacrifice and nourished by His Bread and Wine, His Body and Blood. May our hearts be stirred as we receive this life from Him.