The Painting Contest Theme was "Peace"

The prize for runner-up went to a painting of an idyllic spring pasture, where you could almost feel the velvety breeze floating over the scene and sunbeams danced off pastel flower petals and glinted over chirping birds chatting over their reflections in the brook. The theme for the art contest was "peace". Of course that picture would've been given a high rating.

...but if that was "runner-up", what was the winning painting like?

It was a black, violent, stormy scene, in which a wave crashed against the cliff, sending spray all over. But if you looked carefully, you could see on those rocks was a branch with a nest, and on that nest was highlighted a still bird...that depicted a peace that nothing could shake, the judges decided.

Yesterday was Resurrection Sunday, when we celebrate the true life we have in Christ. People have the wrong idea of "life". Many think it's doing a lot of work, being successful, having a lot of friends; so the "Christianized" version of that might be being involved in a lot of ministries, having a lot of Christian friends or maybe going to church. That's more like the spring cherry blossom blizzards I see in Japan now. They are pretty, no doubt about it.

But when God takes everything else away--natural man would call that "he has no life"--and puts children of God in isolation, but they learn to find peace and life in His Love alone, maybe there are actual snow blizzards--I remember seeing the real, "sticking kind" of snowfall in April up in Koriyama once, and the sakura blossoms were so shocked they all fell from the trees. But sometimes from deep within the ground, we can see surprising blossoms fight their way up. Here's a drawing of a rose in the snow. It was drawn from a photograph, not imagination, so it really does happen. No, it wasn't that same year.