I took an Art Expressions Bible study class a couple years ago. It was the neatest Bible study I've ever participated in. We did lots of different projects with different media and different meditation exercises. The consistent stream of focus running through every project was quieting our hearts, meditating on scripture, and hearing what God had to say to us individually.
The class was for non-artists as well as artists. The teachers were wonderfully creative artists who encouraged every timid woman interrested to give it a try. The results were beautiful. Hidden creativity came out in some and boundaries of fear, intimidation, and inadequacy were broken through. The women had fun. And they were sweetly ministered to by God.
One of our projects was to read through the story of the woman who had been bleeding for 12 years. (Mark 5:24-34) How she sought Jesus in the crowds as He was on his way to heal a little girl, Jairus' daughter, who was coincidentally 12 years old. We were asked to read the passage over and over, focusing on what it must have been like to be that woman. What was she feeling when she reached out to touch Jesus' garment? What did she experience when she realized she had been healed? And what was going on inside her when Jesus called her out, saying "Who touched Me? Someone touched Me for I felt power go out of Me"?
The art part of our project was interesting. We were to draw faces with our non-dominant hand on torn out pages of text. We were to draw as many as we could in two minutes, each on a different page. In the end, we chose which one we liked the most and glued it onto an 8x10 canvas.
Next we painted the background, the face, and the woman's head clothing. It was really fun and very interesting to try to put on the canvas what we had "seen" in this woman through our meditation exercises.
This poor woman must have felt so beaten down and tired from her illness. All the blood loss alone would certainly make her tired, let alone the enormous ramifications of her condition. Because of her "issue of blood" she was "unclean" among her people. The stigma must have been terrible. How desperately she must have longed to be normal and accepted once again.
She shouldn't have been in the crowd, not with her uncleanness. But she was desperate. She must have been so tired of announcing "Unclean!" whenever she came into a crowd. Her faith was large in that she believed that all she needed to do was touch Jesus' garment and she could be healed. She may have thought, "if I can just touch Him then I'll be healed and I wont' have to worry about being in the crowd." She wanted to keep herself hidden and secret.
She was healed. Oh, what she must have felt at that moment! She shrank back into the crowd, enjoying this private miracle that had just taken place in her body and in her soul. But wait...He knows something happened. He's calling for the one who touched Him. Everyone was touching Him in that crowd yet He was calling for the one who touched Him.
The scripture says that she came forward with fear and trembling and told Him the truth. What impacted me the most was that though she was afraid, she came. I wrote on the back of the canvas the things God pointed out to me as I listened to Him on the passage.
If you can't read it very well, this is what I wrote:
. She had huge faith.
. Yet she trembled with fear when He called her out.
. But she came. She drew close to Him.
. If she had shied away, fading back into the crowd --heeding her fear--she would not have heard Him call her "Daughter". She would not have heard His love for her. She would not have seen His compassion and felt His love.
I tried to feel her emotions right along with her. I wrote a brief description on the back of the canvas. It reads:
"Relief. Peace. It's finally over. Uh oh...He's calling me out. I'm caught. But...ohhh...He's so gentle and so kind. He loves me? He calls me Daughter? *Sigh.* Peace. Rest"
The thing that has stuck with me about this exercise, the thing I believe God wanted me most to learn is that
If she had heeded her fear,
she would not have heard Him call her Daughter.
Often, fear keeps us from even drawing near to our Healer. Fear can make us hide. We can hide behind our own self-protection, worried that perhaps we'll be met with a stern God who is tired of our fear. Or we want the fear to go away before we venture to move our true heart closer to Him. Just make the fear go away and then I'll let down my guard, OK, God? We want guarantees first. But this woman came afraid. She moved toward what she knew was right, despite her fear. She was afraid, but she didn't choose her fear. She chose Him. And because of that, she got to hear Him call her Daughter.
Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. ~ James 4:8
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