Imagine looking into a lake of water on a fresh spring day, or into a quiet stream making its way over branches and rocks, and around snow and ice. Or maybe you are looking into a still pool of water, while children giggle and play Marco-Polo in the shallow end.

No matter the season, the time of day, the type of water or the shape it takes, they all reveal the same thing when you look into it; a reflection.

The water will always reflect back what it sees. It may not be a perfect reflection as the weather conditions and activity of the water will cause ripples or small waves or rings that will distort the image, but it still reflects back what it sees.

In Ephesians 5, water is used to describe the Word:

“For he died for us, sacrificing himself to make us holy and pure, cleansing us through the showering of the pure water of the Word of God”

— Ephesians 5:25b-26 TPT

About 15 years ago, i made this picture of the Bride of Christ being showered with various Words of Scripture as she walks under the awning to meet her Groom!

Our minds are given a cleansing bath by the Word, washed of all the dirt, dust and grime we picked up throughout or day.  I imagine the scriptures showering down on me, washing my mind, transforming my soul.

When we look into the waters of Scripture, when we gaze intensely into them, they reflect back onto us, just like other bodies of water.  It’s a beautiful picture of being cleansed and transformed to be more Christ-like. To be purified, becoming ready to be the Bride of Christ.

Now imagine being so immersed into the waters of scripture,  so deeply in the presence of God as we meet him there, that our face reflects that of Gods?  The radiant beauty of the Lord would shine brightly on our faces as we climb back down the mountain like Moses did on Mount Sinai, to be among the people who are waiting for us. They would actually see the glory of God on us. How cool is that?

What would it be like if we were now completely submerged in the scriptures? We’d come back up wet with the Word dripping off our hair, our clothes, leaving a trail of puddles and droplets of truth behind us for others to splash through. For others to follow and find as we walk from place to place. People would become curious and intrigued…they may even follow us all the way to God!

One final thought… sometimes we think we need to simply read the scriptures and our ticket is punched, our deed is done. But in doing so, we never get wet. Never get messy, never get cleaned, purified, transformed… We would never leave behind those droplets of truth for others to find and follow to Jesus. But what if:

“The goal is not for us to get through the Scriptures. The goal is to get the Scriptures through us….What matters is not how many words we memorize, but what happens to our minds as we immerse them in Scripture”

— Ortberg, John. The Life You've Always Wanted: Spiritual Disciplines for Ordinary People (p.187, 190). Zondervan. Kindle Edition.

I would love to hear from you! Please comment below, or by email (merri@artsandblessings.com) or for quicker interaction with me as well as with other readers, post your comment on my facebook page! I can’t wait to hear from you!

You may have noticed I paint a lot of landscapes with reflections. That’s because of how much fun it is to do, especially when it actually looks like it is a reflection when it’s done :)

My most recent landscape painting I call “Joyful Reflections”.

My goal was to paint a scene that evokes feelings of joyfulness, so I chose warm colors to add to the trees and shrubs, since they are known to cause the viewer to have happy feelings float to the surface. It is also fun to change up colors you’d expect to see in a landscape, and they provide a nice contrast to all of the cooler greens and blues.

For the image being reflected, I wanted to add more detail to help it stand apart from the reflection.

So I added some scribbles and stipplings to give definition to some trees. That was an exciting kind of scary thing to do because I didn’t want to ruin the painting and you can’t undo a micron pen!

But I had no intention of it being perfect. Loose, free and fun is what I was going for! Without that, where is the joy?

Once I had the main picture done with the background detailed and the girl and kayak in place, all the focus was to the right of the painting. I needed something to balance out the left side.

I love Claude Monet’s Water Lily Pond painting. so I thought I’d try to add some lily pads and water flowers to the surface of the water. .

I used gouache and my favorite iridescent sparkly watercolor to help the pads and flowers to stand out from the reflection.

How fun is that? These photos don’t really capture the effect as well as viewing it in person, but the lily pads are quite fun!

Don’t you want to play hopscotch on them to get to the dry land?

The final piece achieves the goal of being joyfully magical!

It has some things I wish I could change, like the purple tree from being in dead center of the painting, but this painting was never about being perfect, it was about having fun, experimenting, and painting some joy.

When we get hung up on perfection, creativity runs right out the door. This paintings very beginnings were born out of a technique that eliminates a lot of control. By using it, you make random leaf-like patterns by pressing crumpled saran wrap into wet watercolor and wait for it to dry. Doing this left behind the neat textured background that I used to shape the trees and bushes.

The saran wrap technique leaves a lot up to chance. It does not create a perfect mirror image from the top half to the bottom. The painting started out perfectly imperfect! I worked from that first layer of playing with textures to come to this final painting.

The imperfections that result are born out of joyful creativity, experimenting, and having fun playing with new techniques.

Sometimes you just need to let go of “just right” to jump into the relaxing, fun flow of the art.

I would love to hear from you! Please comment below, or by email (merri@artsandblessings.com) or for quicker interaction with me as well as with other readers, post your comment on my facebook page! I can’t wait to hear from you!