BIRD BRINGS COLOUR TO LONDON

 

I had the pleasure of taking part in a prophetic and worship night last Saturday. I had the opportunity to not only lead some music worship which I thoroughly enjoyed and actually felt tingles of the holy Spirit. I got to paint as well. Unashamed Disclaimer this blog talks all about my spiritual Journey with the person of the Godhead the Holy Spirit.

Let me tell you the Lord was with me because some how I painted this in an hour. Now I have to let you into a little secret I did do a bit of prep work. Drawing out the outline earlier in the day and also half painting the Bee-eater. However I still believe that the Holy spirit really helped me to paint this painting. How do I know? Because I didn't have an ounce of stress. Just like a good friend had recommended to me I was just painting with God and literally enjoying my Daddy's company as we created this together. The Holy Spirit whispered go here go there.

I did not think that I would have it finished enough to share but I did and thanks to being placed the second to share I was in a good place to explain what it was all about.

As some of you will know I am an avid birdwatcher and God often uses this way to speak to me and to show me his presence. I am think I am having the revelation about him showing me his presence through birds whilst I write this.

So it should not have come as a surprise to me that he would use a bird which to be honest I had not heard about for a while to speak to me about the nation and my own life as well.

In fact again as I write this I don't think the Holy Spirit has finished speaking to me through this incredible bird so there will be other blogs which feature this bird at some point.

The personal part of this story and perhaps we leave the national one for tomorrow or the next time I sit down to write because it's late and its a School night. This testimony tells you just how personal God is with us!

About a month ago I joined a course called The Thriving Christian Artist ran by a very successful Christian Artist called Matt Tommey his teaching even the snippets I had heard up until this month on his podcast and on Youtube are amazing and I knew I had to get more involved. So after doing the Arise Christian Artists Bootcamp online even though it was a financial stretch and it still is I knew that I had to invest in finding out more.

So I signed up to the course and I have not been disappointed even the lesson I heard today which I will blog about another time was amazing and is a total game changer if you really adopt it and get revelation on it.

I had noticed that there was a bird on his promotional literature but because I had nothing up close I thought it was a hummingbird as do many others I have found. It wasn't until my complementary folder arrived that I saw it up close and until Saturday morning I still thought it was a Hummingbird

Rewind a few weeks and one morning I woke up with this bird in my head in technicolour.I knew straight away it was a Bee-eater. So I kept going back to the Lord and saying why have you put a Bee-eater in my head, but nothing in particular came. Still I knew it was significant.

Friday afternoon the day before the prophetic worship night where I am going to be painting I have like 5 pictures in my head but then one bursts forth like it usually does. I knew I had to paint canary warf. Then as I looked at the folder from the course I knew I had to paint the bird that was on it. I could see it in my minds eye yet at this point I still think its a hummingbird which I also think is a significant bird in the spiritual realm but will research that another time.

So the Saturday morning I am at my desk doing my last bit of prep in terms of working out what I was going to paint that night. So I start looking at Hummingbirds and start practicing them. Then I looked at the wing on the Hummingbird and then on the bird I had in front of me and I think. Hold on a minute that is not a hummingbird it's a Bee-eater. At that point I know I need to paint a bee-eater into this city scape and God starts to speak to me about the significance of this bird over our nation and it will continue to unfold and I will share that with you tomorrow.

Although the organisers of the course told me it was a kingfisher I know my birds and I know it is a bee-eater that is on the front of my folder for this course. What a brilliant confirmation that I really am meant to be doing The Thriving Christian Artist Mentoring programme. Yet again God spoke to me and confirmed it in a way only I would get he is truly amazing.

THE THRIVING CHRISTIAN ARTIST

 I am doing a course at the moment with a Christian Artist called Matt Tommey and it has made me so excited about being an Artist. God is renewing my passion for my calling as an Artist. He has made me re-think and renew my mind in many ways. I feel free again to experiment, try and learn new things. I am an artist I am called to be one and I am called to be one of the Army of artists. It is time to take my place in that Army.

I realise that I have a lot of ground to improve on many fronts. I even know that I have to improve my skills as an artist and it's a good thing to admit that. Well whether we are the best artist out there or just starting we can always improve right. Now because I have been painting now continuously for 20 years, though I have to be honest not continuously that I would like. Like I said in a previous blog before lockdown I had not painted for 18 months and neither had I done much that was creative. Nevertheless I imagine that there has been some improvements. However I need to admit it had not occurred to me that I needed to look into other techniques and ways of painting or even doing Art.

Like I said in my last blog it's time to grow, its time to watch you-tubes and research other artists. I have had this niggle at me that I should look at other artists for ages and what is current etc but I always think gosh I do not have time. As most of you know I still have my full time job and I do want to get to a place where I am doing this as a full or part-time vocational artist. However at the moment I am not there and the reason why I haven't spent much time looking at other artists or other techniques is I thought I didn't have the time for that and I thought it was a waste of time. I may not sell every piece of art I do but that process is part of being an artist and I can share it so that you know how different pieces are coming about.

I have just done a sketch for my last homework of a gift being given because my great aha moment

I realise now it is not a waste of time. I am going to enjoy the journey I am embarking on.

I am also going to be featuring other artists on my blogs, shows and social media in the near future.

LOCKDOWN VALENTINES

 Well its that time of year again when those of us with sweethearts start thinking how to surprise them. We think about what to do to make their day special. As will be the case with m

any of you this will be the first valentine's since I started my relationship with my hubby that I we will have to spend it in the comfort of our own house.

So everyone who has a honey out there you have 2 weeks to get your thinking caps on to see how you can make this lockdown valentines as special than if you could go out to your fave restaurant.

I will be thinking of some menu ideas and activity ideas over the next few days I would love to hear your ideas as well. So drop your ideas in the comments so we can all share ideas. Or I have a forum on my website where you can drop some comments. On another blog I will be talking about big date in menu and activity ideas. We do already have a date night each week, so that really does raise the bar for valentines.

Today I am releasing my Valentine's range of cards and mugs and pretty much anything you want one of my paintings on.

THE VEGAN ARTIST

 

I had been feeling for quite a long time that I and we as a couple needed to be a bit more healthy. We were moving towards this steadily but we were eating a lot of dairy. For a few years now I was trying to cut down on meat. We were aiming to eat meat a few times a week like say three times. Then we wanted to eat fish at least once a week. In fact we were eating meat on a Friday not for a religious reason more to do with tradition.

I was feeling pretty good about our steady process to get healthier. I had also started to think about ejecting all toxins out of my life. However, to be honest I was not sure how to do that and I am still working that out.

For a long time I thought that I could not do much about my diet, and I thought I was doing all I could. I had this niggle (which I would call the Holy Spirit) in the back of my mind though that this was not the case but I didn’t know how. I was starting to look at recipes now and again. I would go through phases of looking at my recipe book. With lockdown I had lots of time to bake and try new recipes, I was trying to cut down on sugar but it was really hard and I was failing on a regular basis. I did though have good diet in mind thinking about the fertility journey which we were/are on, but that is another blog for another time.

That was July, it’s now nearly February and my life looks very different particularly in the area of diet.

Back in August on top of Lockdown I was diagnosed with a health condition during my fertility journey which was a complete surprise to us which span us into a whirlwind. It really took me out and set me back, thankfully I had been thinking that diet, supplements etc could make a massive difference when it came to diseases and sicknesses. Still, I never thought that I would need to have these thought processes. I thought I would just be doing it in a precautionary matter and not a fighting one.

Thankfully work gave me a bit of time off and my husband and I decided to go on the weekend away we had planned which just so happened to fall August bank holiday weekend coincidentally (though if you have ever read any of my other blogs you will know that I don’t believe in coincidences)

The reason perhaps why I never felt I could go the whole hog when it came to eating healthily is that I thought it would be too expensive, and I didn't have the time to make everything from scratch I mean why bother when companies do it for you. I imagine there are many of us that think like this.

The weekend was nice although sadly there was a cloud over it because I had not had a scan at that point and didn’t know the extent of what was happening. To some degree I still don’t but I know as much as I can. I know I am being mysterious but I am still right in the middle and although I feel emotionally much better than I did we have a long way to go, although I have lost count of the times I have been prayed for so believing for divine healing.

As soon as I got the diagnosis I was on google looking up foods that could beat it. So straight away I started to put these things in our diet I looked at recipes with such things as citrus, walnuts and watercress three important foods.

When we got back we watched a youtube about a lady who went from near death to full health by going vegan or what I would call a daniel fast. This is because vegan does not cut out sugar and processed, in fact there are many processed food designed for vegans which I kind of thing defeats the object of going vegan. Still some people go vegan because they don't like meat, others because they don't want to kill others and then there is those who want to live a more ethical lifestyle. I suppose you would put me in the group that wants to live a more ethical lifestyle but that has to do with my Christian beliefs about being good stewards, I believe we should be way a head of greenpeace at Christians but I go off on a tangent.

So I had tried being a vegan a couple of times, though I would call it a daniel fast. I remember for two years, in January. So that would be no sugar, no processed and just beans, lentils, vegetables and nuts no dairy and no meat. Both times I tried to be a vegan in the past I have failed. My body felt like it was going through a blender, I really felt the detox and the feeling of withdrawal of sugar and chemicals my body was going through. Plus I always felt constantly hungry and on top of that I seemed to have no energy and might have ended up having borderline anemia.

This time was different, perhaps it was because I felt like I had no other option, I had to do all that I could to get my body healthy and beat this thing trying to attack me. Straight away I kicked out sugar and processed foods which I had starting doing but this time it was drastic.

I really went through a melt down at first because I didn't know what to cook. I read lots of Instagram's and blogs about recipes and some would say this is good for you and others would say something else was good for you. I didn't know who to believe I just had to be guided by the holy spirit.

I was concerned that everything I ate could be causing more harm than good, but I just had to move forward with the knowledge and revelation if you like which I had.

I found there were all kinds of ways to substitute dairy in my diet. I discovered that nuts are amazing they can be used to make cream, cheese, powder much more than just a snack. I realised that vegetables are so versatile. A friend sent me a post about how you can make sweet potato toast, what an amazing find. It is delicious with avocado, nut butter and if you weren't cutting out sugar you could have it with jam or chocolate spread but then again we are talking about being healthy here.

I think one of the reasons we either give up on being healthy or we think its too much hassle is because we have been conditioned to think this way. Everything has been shouting at us that we don't have the time and well it's so easy to pick up something in the supermarket. If they are selling it, it can't possibly harm us could it? I used to think people who look at the labels of foods or the calories were extra but now I look at the ingredients of everything. I want to know exactly what I am putting in my body. Actually I only try to buy raw ingredients and organic where-ever I can. We have a local farmer who brings us Veg and it's so good.

I realised that I personally have gotten so lazy when it came to cooking, lockdown even before the diagnosis I had time to eat differently. Some years back I had decided that gluten was not my friend so I started to eat gluten free bread but I thought gosh how many chemicals are in this so I stopped and started making alternative lunches.

Actually with a bit of planning with both our time and finances we can have a healthy diet, it just takes a mind shift like many things in life so if I can do it you can do it.

I will be putting out some of the recipes I used to make as a vegan but since then I have found that I need to go even more extreme but that is for a later blog.

DARE TO DREAM

 

We're at the beginning of a new year and like I said yet again another lockdown. I hear lots of people saying what's the point. We are stuck in our homes and we can't do anything. Well there may be lots of things we can't do, but there are many things we can do. One of those things it to dream. No-one can stop you from dreaming. Doesn't that seem like a pointless exercise I mean what good is dreaming going to do.

Lots of amazing results can come from us dreaming, that is when many ideas are birthed. What I want to say is use this time when you don't feel you can achieve much in the physical. Even though I believe much can be achieved in this time but that is another blog.

Let's start dreaming again, the truth is lots of us are scared to dream because we think we will be disappointed, we think well what happens if we don't see our dreams a reality. This may be true but there is also the danger of never dreaming and just staying where you are, this way nothing my ever change and life just gets boring and I believe this is one of those things that leaves us with a lack of hope and even can lead us into depression, there is nothing to motivate us forward.

Dreaming is one of the things that make us human its what keeps us looking forward otherwise we can get stuck in the monotony of the present or the failures of the past.

Dreaming means we engage out imagination and engaging our imagination generally brings life as long as our dreams are not of an evil nature. When I talk about our desires I believe that most of the time our desires are good but of course that is a choice.

Let's also consider our night dreams where this is an idea which has been brought to my attention that we should take more notice of our night dreams as they could be a message for us. Now as a Christian I believe that those messages are from a spiritual realm and often they are messages from God to us, even if they are from the evil side of the spiritual world God still has a message from what we are dreaming. As I discover more about this I will be blogging more about it.

THE LION AND THE LAMB

 

I am sure like me you probably thought that covid would be long behind us. When we were approaching Christmas I think I thought well we will be able to get back to some kind of normality. Nonetheless the truth was so different. We were told that the pandemic started to get worse over Christmas. So as I painted this and another one which I will paste down below I thought that these paintings would be irrelevant.

How wrong I and we are. We are in the middle of January and we have nearly been in some state of lockdown now for almost a year.

So I am releasing this painting today, it is a prophetic painting, that means I feel that God gave it to me.

I am posting this now because it is still as relevant today as it was six months ago. So here you have one of the paintings I was doing during my Art lives last year, it is called The Lion and the Lamb. Now let me explain this picture I believe God gave me last year. Jesus is the Lion of Judah and no matter what happens he is over and above this Corona Virus. Despite what we are seeing in the news and currently even with the rising figures but corona is not crowning that this world. I believe that Jesus is still crowned over this earth. Not only that but he tears it up in his teeth and he will destroy it I really believe this.

Another picture of God is the Lamb at the bottom of the painting and the lamb which symbolises the Lamb of God. He is sitting on the corona virus calmly he is not scared of it. These two creatures which are both pictures of Jesus who loves all people.

It was not God who brought this horrible virus to this earth and I believe that God wants to bring healing. So those of you who are believers please continue to pray that this virus gets blown away I believe it will be.

Right now all we see in the media is numbers rising and we see doom and gloom new mutations. Nevertheless I believe that years from now we will hear incredible stories of what God did during this time. I have to be honest although I don't want to be see pain and hurt but I would love to see and hear and even be part of these stories. For those of us who are believers maybe we won't know until we get to heaven.

I believe that there is hope in this midst of all this chaos and of course as a Christian this is only found in Jesus.

Here is the one that I painted first which was about the God turning the corona virus around and turning it into treasure. This a word for the economy over our nation and once again it is relevant over the situation.

In this time we have set up two businesses they are growing slowly but we believe that they will defy this difficult period for ourselves and many others.