Milk and Honey...

“Simple is better in peace, than abundance in conflict.” - Jean Bringol

The land flowing with milk and honey is abundance at its best and can be absolutely wonderful. God mentions it over and over and over throughout the Bible. However, without peace, nothing tastes good or feels right.

I know this full well. I have lived in abundance and it was not peaceful. Now, I’m living in a quiet home, with just me and my daughter and simple is far better for me. It took me a while to get over the shock, and it also took me a while to settle into it… but now I see it. Now I see glimpses of what my future can be like and I am looking forward to it and thankful I have survived so far to see it coming. Turns out, peace with a calm and loving atmosphere is everything I ever needed... so much better than my "dream home".

I have mentioned before that I journal a lot. I have been through phases where I dread it, but have done it anyway. Now I’m back to writing almost every day because it is therapeutic. I also write down a lot of my prayers. I have thousands of prayers written down. Most I have kept, but many I have burned or thrown into water somewhere. The interesting thing about journaling is looking back. Some things you think you will never forget, but then poof… gone. It can be very insightful to go back and see where you have come from… you find little gems of truth or a pattern in your journal that can be very helpful and even some clues, hints or perhaps foreshadowing.

The opening quote is by Jean Bringol. She is an amazing therapist I had the honor to work with. She helped me through the biggest challenge of my life so far. She gives the credit to God working through her. I am so glad she has used her mind and done the homework for so long to be able to be so helpful and caring to her clients. Her wisdom, caring and loving heart, and decades of experience are unmatched.

Jean introduced me to two very helpful tools of therapy. EMDR and EFT. I have blogged about EMDR before. It can be very beneficial with the right support. Jean always asked God to intervene and worked with Him to help me. It was over a year ago, after a very emotional and eye opening EMDR session, I was given a chart to write down different feelings, or things that happened to me the rest of that week. That same day, after the awakening during EMDR, I went straight home to the barn to visit my farm animals. (aka happy place) I went for a ride on Tamar (my beautiful mare). When I got back I was surrounded by my horses and chickens when a swarm of bees was around me. I had never experienced that before. I had never even seen bees up by the barn before. I was immediately on edge and felt a spiritual presence about it. It felt like good and evil colliding. I sensed something big, but I wasn’t sure what it was… none of the bees stung me. I even had to stay out there to put things away and put out hay and nothing happened. When I went back inside, I felt intense nerves. I wrote down the event on the EMDR journal. The next day, my mom came over to visit. I could not believe my eyes… she was wearing a beautiful BEE brooch on her top. I had never seen her wear it before. She told me it belonged to her sister-in-law, who had passed away. It was beautiful and I was now thinking about bees a little differently. I felt there was something spiritual going on. That night, something big happened and I could not discount it, but can’t write about it in detail yet. Quick interruption: If you haven’t read my other blogs, I had decided to start living in the truth before this happened. I was saying all the truth, no matter how hard or ugly, and I thought that I was being told the truth in return. Back to the story - The short version is… my eyes were opened to a new truth that altered my ability to trust my current situation. I was in the middle of a big lie. A complete manipulation. Things I had questioned were worse that I even imagined. Ever since then, I have had several very strange “Bee encounters” that made me start wondering why the bees? The next day, I went to have coffee with the sunrise at the Lakeway Airpark where my dad’s ashes were released in 2016. I wanted to hear from him so badly. I was hoping if I went there, I might get something like a voice or a day dream or something to help me know what to do. I opened my Bible to Ecclesiastes 2 and read through 4 and then put that in my journal. Two days later, I was given these verses: “This is what the Lord says: Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” Jeremiah 6:16 “I will guide you along the best pathway for your life. I will advise you and watch over you.” Psalm 32:8 I was scared and confused. I didn’t know where to go or what exactly to do or who to trust, but I trusted God. I later wrote in my journal. “My soul is not at peace – something needs to change. Faith +Action”

"The power of sin is in the secret." Brian Montgomery

Fast forward a year and several months. A lot has changed, but I still have a thing for bees. Two, pretty obvious, out of the ordinary “bee things” happened to me in Llano before I found the gallery. Lately, I’ve been having the artist itch to paint a bee. I still wasn’t sure exactly what the deal was… but I have a thing, so I did. Now I have a Bee painting. Although I’m working through this blog to figure out the name of the painting. As I’m fumbling through my old notes to figure out a name, I came across so many things that were guiding me on this path. I didn’t remember until just this week that God used a swarm of bees to give a prophecy to Samson. A messenger from God. Something prophetic. God also used a female prophetess, Deborah in the Bible. Guess what her name means “Bee”. Okay, so maybe these are not coincidences. I don’t believe in that anymore. Oh, and I didn’t paint a Bee to BEE TRENDY either. (insert eye roll)

So, back to “the land flowing with milk and honey”… Did I also mention I painted a cow? No? Well, I did. Shrug. The things that I must do to maintain the sanity of my artist brain… Who doesn’t love cows? Well, I felt it only appropriate to mention this cow since we are talking about living abundantly in the land flowing with milk and honey. Seriously, look up how many times that is mentioned in the Bible. This painting is also un-named as I type this… while I try and figure out his name. Hopefully, by the time I finish this blog, I’ll have two names. One just came to me while typing about the Bee. Now for my cow.

Madeleine L’Engle said “The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver… Each work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very small, comes to the artist and says, ‘Here I am, enflesh me, give birth to me.’”

So, it’s now extremely late as I type this. I’m going to wrap up this blog for now. But I have good news. I have decided on two names.

Milk and Honey. Hahaha just kidding. I decided instead of naming the paintings, I’m naming the cow, Israel, and I’m naming the bee, Deborah. Many females, like Deborah, played a VERY important part in leadership in the Bible. I just wanted to throw that in here. I love reading about the strong women in the Bible. Deborah led all of Israel to peace for 40 years! #strongwoman

"Deborah" 24"x30" Acrylic on Canvas

$750.00

"Israel" 16"x20" Oil on Canvas - plus add a few inches for frame.

$650.00