Do I Look like an ORANGUTAN?!

Memory work said "Behold, a white horse," so I decided to work on timed drawings of horses.

After all, society's leaders are the shining stallions who cross the stage to accolades and cheers, right?

But those "horse seals" were opened by a lamb, weren't they? I did 2,5,and 10-min. drawings of sheep.

After all, it was the Lamb who was worthy, slain; and elders fell down before the Lamb, offering songs, prayer, worship, and adoration...it wasn't to any horse!

That's what God wants, it slowly came to me: not the redeemed in heaven claiming to be perfect saints now, but changed into humbled elders praising the LAMB!

So where was I going to be in all of this? Well, I was probably just...I pulled up a drawing of a little ape doing his best to stay cool by using a leaf for a sunbonnet.

Wait...that's ME? Serves me right for drawing Mommy once as an elephant. You read that post, right?

A GRIPPING LESSON

 "Just a little talk with Jesus makes it right."

That's become one of my favorite song lyrics. Sometimes I wonder why I do anything other than pray. But I forget to do so again and again...

When I started drawing seriously four years ago, I learned, among other things, artists drew with a "football hold" different than the grip used for detailed writing with a pencil. When I learned all the reasons why, I wanted to learn to do it right...but would I be able to switch now, in my 60's, when most students in art school are young, in their 20's or late teens? I looked up to Heaven...no; God wouldn't be interested in something like this! I didn't even bother to pray.

I got out my colored pencils and began doing tutorials designed for other media. Covering that amount of space with pencil (meant for detail work) was exhausting. Was it the third picture? I looked down at my ow hand and realized I'd been holding my pencils with a "football grip" in order to color it in! I looked up and could almost see God smiling.

"You didn't vocalize it, but I heard you anyway," He seemed to say.

"Who teaches like God?" (Job 36:22)

Herod...believed in God?

”Eeeeeee!" I remember feeling like i wanted to stretch until my joints came out of my sockets, when I had my first bout with restless leg syndrome in elementary, my variation of it affecting my arms down to my fingertips, not just my legs.

But it looks like it feels so good when babies do it. Stretch, I mean. The other day, I was watching some wake up after a good night's rest in tight swaddling, and they were irresistably adorable. 

How could anyone kill innocent infants (Matt. 2:16)? But...then I realized that King Herod's slaughter of babies was because he believed in God!

Some people think only those who don't believe in God do horrific things. Not so. Herod knew he'd acquired the throne by craft. When he heard the Christchild--the rightful heir to the throne--was born, the reason he felt threatened by a helpless baby born in poverty was because he BELIEVED a God in Heaven was out to get him.

Why else would a powerful head of government issue orders to wipe out defenseless infants of his own people?

Some have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge, according to the Bible. Paul believed God, but he persecuted followers of Christ. Pharisees believed God, but framed, shamed, and crucified Jesus. Religious leaders, in the name of God, have tormented laity down through history. So...just believing in God isn't enough?

What God says about us, not what we believe about Him, seems to be more important. Hm. Does God say, lovingly, "This is my beloved child."--as this father and mother clearly feel towards their boy--when He looks at us? That's what He said when He looked at Jesus being baptized; the pastor said this morning. Here is a pic from last month when he says he unintentionally almost drowned a young member baptizing her!

P.S.: (The redeemed have a special relationship with God, but it doesn't do away with our need to constantly repent. Some church workers attain ministry ends by ungodly means; there are perpetual relationship self-sins among the flock. However, unlike Herod, we know the One with Whom we have to do is a Merciful Everlasting Father.)

Uri (Eutychus) thought it was worth it

"Just know God made you the way you are and do what you do best for His glory." I was told. "If you like to write, write." Would supportive readers then take a peek at the below narrative glimpse:

URI (EUTYCHUS)

Uri, the Hebrew slave-boy, bone-tired from finishing his day's duties, rushed off to the home the reputable apostle was to speak at that day. The first century church did not have videotape, and who knew how many years it would be before Paul could come to Troas again. The large room had been filling up fast...people sitting on chairs, the floor, any place they could find...there! The WINDOWSILL! The frame was perfect to rest Uri's weary back. Ahh.

How long had he been sitting there? No one knows. Paul was well into his talk when interrupted by a disturbance at the window. Someone had fallen out! Fallen out? But this was 3rd Floor! Before anyone could mutter apology about the man's having nodded off during the sermon, Paul was down the steps and outside crouching over the lifeless form.

"No! God, you can't let this happen! He was here--because he loves YOU!" Paul cried, embracing the crumpled body. A small group had gathered around now, and to their astonishment, the lad opened his eyes! Some cried with joy and relief. Others were merely incredulous. To the confused slave were given explanations of how he had dropped off to sleep and fallen from the window.

"Young man, your name?" It was Paul. Uri, embarrassed, didn't want to be known as "the man who FELL FROM THE WINDOW BECAUSE HE FELL ASLEEP".

"Eutychus." he said, giving his Greek name. 

(Acts 20:9,10)

Don't we all know how Uri felt? We desperately want to please God but often end up making a royal mess of things. But there's no need to worry; God can glorify Himself out of our fiascos anyway.

Note: some criticize those in the congregation who fall asleep during the sermon as   "unspiritual". If it happens all the time, there may be a problem; but can it not be these believers prove, by their very attendance, they feel a message from God is WORTH listening to, no matter how tired they are, even if the presentation is not attractive/compelling enough to keep them awake? 

Would you be willing to have others see you nodding off to sleep, just to get a chance at hearing words of gold from God?

* Incidentally, the above story is, of course, fiction. I have no idea what Eutychus' Hebrew name really was.

** I didn't know if I should add this, because readers might end up remembering this instead of the rest of the post: my Bible teacher gave his students a handy way to remember the name Eutychus, saying, "If you'd have fallen out a 3rd floor window, Eutychus too!"

DADDY'S PICTURES

When pant legs snap shut, siblings sure come in handy for dressing! Daddy took a lot of pictures. This pic is titled, "I need some help here." 

There's another photo that's not so ordinary. But Daddy didn't take it, since he's in it. See?

It has to do with a phone call I got this morning from my Mom's cousin from Hawaii--a long story--she's actually from Hawaii but was a Christian schoolteacher in California; retired; came to Japan with her husband and was helping give out the Gospel until her husband passed away. She continued working alone until God led her to a Japanese evangelist who is now her husband.

"What? Your Dad was in Okinawa for grades 4 and 5?" she asked, startled. I explained to her how Grampa Oshiro had sent the family, from Canada, to live with wealthy relatives in Okinawa when necessary during Depression years.

Framed photos on his study shelves show his family, in later years, those relatives, and still later, our family.

Coaldale Outfielder Roy...but that's not a baseball cap! and Kimiko doing Field work in College Days

Is it any wonder that, when Daddy got saved, his first response was that somebody HAD to get the Gospel message to those with whom he'd swam the creeks, slapped the mosquitos, blabbed in the local dialect? He was no preacher...but as a ballplayer he knew in order to steal second base, you can't stand around thinking about it; he just quit his job (he was a schoolteacher), took off for Bible School training, left for the foreign field. Then he found out God had a helpmeet ONE year younger than him, already trained a full term in missionary work, waiting for him there...picture perfect!

How did God manage that?

PATCHWORK POST

Miscellaneous tidbits today. Nothing seemed to come together, so that's what you'll be getting: a "bara-bara" report.

Last week's beach picnic at the was rained out. But one happy result was that one of the toddlers that visited church stayed for the games that were scheduled at the church afterwards since we couldn't go out, and she ended up getting very attached to the pastor's wife! Maybe she'll come back again and keep coming until she's old enough to understand and accept the Gospel for herself!

My sister invited me to watch women's volleyball on her TV.  Leaving the apartment yesterday evening to go down to Joyce's, I'd said to my husband, "Tonight's game is with Poland (one of its players is 6'8"!). Expect me to come home crying; I'm pretty sure we're going to lose." Surprise, surprise: we won 3 sets to 1!

I had a mini sketchbook I always carry with me plus a tiny eraser. Joyce let me use her pencil to get a drawing of one of the players.

(Didn't I just recently write about expecting a blessing?) I was expecting to lose?!

After tonight's volleyball game (we lost), I was shown a 30-min. documentary about orangutans. I was really glad for these, because I thought my timed drawing of a primate turned out pretty good until I realized I'd done only the head; and needed to do the rest of the body too!

Someone I know very well thinks she's doing a good job thinking about Christ the Head. While this may be indispensable, she needs to remember it is definitely incomplete without the Body, the Church...

GIANT GUINEA PIGS

"Today was Capybara Day? I wish I'd have known earlier; I would have gotten started sooner and would have gotten my capybara pic finished on time!" I muttered quietly while adding the last touches to my pencil drawing.

"What're you talking about?" the bird in the sketch seemed to quip; "you're just learning to draw animals, aren't you? You didn't know two days ago how to draw a capybara!"

True. I'd practiced drawing birds in the online Drawing Lessons, but that didn't show me how to draw capybaras. Then, in Lesson 2, I'd had to draw quite a few horses and human figures...but again, no capybaras.

But an empty spot of 14 mins.' Timed Drawings had been made up by sketching guinea pigs. Today, I saw a video explaining how the capybara was a relative of the guinea pig. (If you think about it, the capybara is a giant guinea pig!) Doesn't that mean even while I was doing the timed sketches, and completely unaware of what I was going to be doing today, God was preparing me for it by having me draw guinea pigs?

"before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." (Isa.65:24)

SAMUEL JACKSON

"Wow, it's a special day, isn't it?" I said, remembering. You may remember last year's post telling of a family that visited my Dad in a nursing home in 2014. The young lady, Norimi Jackson, in the middle nearest Daddy is now terminally ill and in hospice care, and Sunday, it was her son Sammy, returned from Bible College training in the U.S, who preached for us.

I could see Joycie was thinking hard, wanted to be as accurate as possible. Altho' Samuel Jackson knows Japanese, he felt all his "Church Life" experience was in English, and Joyce does have after all, over 40 years' experience working in the church, so he asked if she would interpret for his message!

Please pray for your missionaries...not just the usual requests like leading souls to salvation, but sometimes the very real struggles like interpreting too!

TOO SMALL? OH NO!

When Daddy first gave me his study, I was just happy to get all those books. I didn't realize how small his room was.  You have to duck down a bit if you're tall to get into that cozy little niche in the corner.

But I've found out this has been an unexpected blessing: because that room is so small, it cools down real quickly, even in the hottest summer months when it gets like an oven in there! I turn on the air conditioner, use the rest room and get me some dandelion coffee or herb tea, and by the time I go back to the room, it has pretty much cooled down.

"So often I think things would be better if they were different," I thought while doing 5-min. drawings of horses. I was able to do these timed drawings in the comfort of a cool room, I realized, because "His ways are above our ways." (Isa.55:9)

If only I'd stop being unhappy with the shortcomings and difficulties placed in my life, knowing that my Heavenly Father has hand-picked them for me for some reason...even frustrating seemingly meaningless 5-minute drawings!

Incidentally, do you know the post's title? There's an old song by that name.

THAT WAS SUNDAY EVENING...

In yesterday's blog, I mentioned shelves had been cleared to make room for my art supplies, and they'd joined the other Japanese books in my stepmother's study. One of those books was by a quadriplegic artist, Tomihiro Hoshino. I began skimming it, since one of his books was featured as our church book of the month, but I found I couldn't put it down. The book tells how he was paralyzed from the neck down when injured while

teaching junior high gymnastics. Should he just die? But then he learns to paint with his mouth and shares delicate floral drawings and heart-searching poetry touching countless lives. I laughed and cried through the whole book. Yes, the entire thing! I'd read it from cover to cover!

And I didn't realize Sunday night, an online notice would show that Tomihiro Hoshino, after God had used him to bless millions with his drawings and inspirational poems, was finally Home. Alongside his photograph was one of his watercolor cherries, and below it, in his "mouthwriting": "What I do may be small. But if I can give thanks in it, it's big."

I suppose it can be doing a mundane task OR it can be accepting a meaningless tragedy, like life without the use of your limbs. I hope I'll be able to say "Thank You", whichever that may be. (Honestly, June?)

Okay. Lord, you know I don't have the heart to say that readily; so please work there to change me, ok?

Tomihiro leaves behind a wife...no, they didn't have any children!

EXCESS BAGGAGE

"You really need to let that go June."

I was clearing out papers again and came across something I'd held onto for years, something which served no other purpose than to nurse wounds of a wrong committed against me. I couldn't get rid of it for some reason--the sinner in me felt good to taste the bitterness time and time again, I suppose.

I thought of how it was like Joseph saving his ropes selling him into slavery--he wouldn't have done that--saved the ropes, I mean. He had named his firstborn, Manasseh, or "God caused me to forget my past toil". I resolutely, finally, threw my painful reminder away.

There. The next paper I looked at...was a short thank-you letter. How nice. I'll keep this! Wait--I felt a little jab in my back. I know people talk about how letters like this are good for when you're feeling down, but isn't that 

what the Holy Spirit is for if you're really a child of God? In actuality, can't having something like this be a needless source of pride?

Maybe for others, that's not a problem, but that's the whisper that came to me. I needed to get rid of this just as much as the first piece of paper. Okay Lord; I guess You know what You're doing. With a sigh, into the "circular file" it went.

Daddy's Lloyd-Jones commentaries and books have been transferred to the shelf with photographs, and other shelves have been cleared to make room for my art supplies. Most of the Japanese books were taken to my stepmother's study.

Oh--a 5-min. duck, 10-min. jellyfish, 20-min. tiger fish were recent timed drawings. They just wouldn't sit still, so I asked them to help with today's post.

JUDGE FAITH

Recently, an online judge caught my eye. Actually, she was popular a decade ago, so I am very behind. But I don't watch T.V. anyway, so...

"In your entire life, whenever you got in a tight bind, you called on one person for help, and that person was always there for you," she reminded the defendant. And, "You can tell she's done some things she's not proud of, but it's obvious she loves you and she has nobody else in her life;" the plaintiff was told, strongly urging re-establishment of bonds before sentencing was passed. I honestly do not remember what it was; it was eclipsed by the importance of their renewed trust relationship with each other.

In another situation, the court case was put on hold completely. "I want you to hear somebody." A person who almost messed up his life unalterably came out from the back and shared candidly of his experience, with the happy result of having the formerly callous teenage defendant apologize to and hug his mother, tell her he would change his ways. He was in a posture then to accept any judgment handed down from the bench. No, I do not remember what happened here either.

Some think of God as the "Judge in the Sky". I guess that can be scary if you know only judges that treat the law as sterile, unfeeling means of executing justice. But if you know God--like Judge Faith--who cares about extending our love-trust relationships and thinks it's worth the time to salvage individuals' lives; well, that kind of Judge doesn't look half as frightening.

He DOES declare principles of absolute truth. But the trust relationship with Him, the hope in the new future centered in Him practically eclipse all else.

TIMED DRAWINGS

"Timed Drawings". I can't stand the 2-minute things. It's supposed to be an exercise to teach your eye and mind to hunt for important things and just jot them down on the paper. In 2 minutes, you really can't get anything down other than the bare essence. Maybe those in art school who have drawn all their lives can manage to make respectable drawings, but this was the best I could do...see? my pelican ended up without his signature pouch lip! Have you ever seen such a pelican?

You feel like you can breathe in a 5-minute drawing, and a 10-minute drawing, you almost feel like you can draw a masterpiece...only, you KNOW I wasn't born with that kind of natural talent.

Actually, I don't know if even Rembrandt or Van Gogh would've created their works of art in 10 minutes.

It is only the Master Artist Who says "Let there be Light" and instantly forms a bow of colors across the sky; sprays a dark velvet canopy with glittering lights then gives them names. It doesn't take him 10 minutes to have streaks of silver electricity pierce the canvas of the universe accompanied by echoes of rolling thunder. Original beauty? Have you ever seen the sunset, waterfall, wildflowers, designs on birds and fish, marveled at the snow, ice, insects?

The other day, when I finished ten 2-min. scrawls, four 5-min. sketches, and two 10 min. drawings--in other words, I'd been working for an hour--it felt good to take a snack break. I had a slice of banana bread Chiaki Garner sent over for my birthday. My Creator can say "Let there be Life" and breathe it into being instantly, but I hear He gives parents 9 months' preparation time.

DON'T NEED THEM!

Today is my sister Janice's birthday.

She is the sister with whom I would go up on our Ojana house rooftop--it doesn't snow in Okinawa, so they're flat--and we sat up there and played the ukulele and guitar and sang for hours. 

"Long, long ago in a far away place Rough rugged timbers were raised to the sky... It only takes a spark to get a fire going...For those tears I died."

Janice is the one who was with me...I just realized she was with me when I had my first "grand mal" epileptic seizures when I was 14 in that Ojana house, and

She was in the Furugen house when I had convulsions and Mommy told me I needed to be regular in taking my medicine FOR THE SAKE OF EVERYONE AROUND ME, since I was unconscious and completely unaware of what was going on, but I scared everyone else.

Janice was sleeping next to me on the bed here 3 years ago to witness another unpleasant episode.

She insisted I set the alarm on my cell for taking my medicine.

I got tired of hearing the alarm (it goes off three times a day) and I'd shut it off but realized I had seizures in the night in Iwatsuki--Kinya told me to go back to sleep and lay down next to me then--and again here.

I thought I didn't want the alarms, but I told my husband and son to expect their sounds again!

Oh--after seizures, when I don't feel well, Kinya brings food to bed for me. For this year's Father's Day card, I drew the meal tray and wrote: "Thank You For Everything." I couldn't think of anything better to sketch!

Wait...this was supposed to be a post for Janice's birthday. How did it end up being about Kinya?