Sandi Hester

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven: a time to weep and a time to laugh.  Ecclesiastes 3:1, 4

You may be wondering how this painting and this scripture relate – they don’t and I’ll tell you why.  Saturday afternoon I went to the creek with Grady – he fished and I painted.  We went to a creek where we have to cross over at one point to get to a good fishing hole for Grady.  Grady always gives me a piggy back ride across the creek – he’s really good at it – he carries me, all my painting gear, and all his fishing gear.  After a couple of hours of fishing and painting it was time to head home because we had a birthday party to go to.  We get all loaded up and I hopped on Grady’s back for my “ride” across the creek.  Everything was going just fine until all of a sudden I’m submerged in the creek – all but one side of my face and one shoulder.  Grady’s foot slipped and he hung on to me for dear life leaving his knee to take the brunt of the fall, but I still ended up submerged in the creek.  Once we got ourselves together and to the side of the creek I realized my bag with all my painting supplies was completely filled to the brim 🙂 with water!  Since I paint with watercolor paints all my supplies were fine, but my sketchbook with all my paintings didn’t fair so well.  That’s why I don’t have any paintings to show you from my painting excursion – they all got washed away – including several other paintings that thankfully I had already posted.  So that’s why there is this random painting – one I did a couple of weeks ago and just hadn’t posted yet because I couldn’t think of a verse to put with it, so this worked out perfectly.  Grady hated my paintings got messed up, but I told him it was worth it for the laugh and the great memory.

So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives.  All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds – everything that moves on the earth – came out of the ark, one kind after another.  Genesis 8:18-19

I feel like this after winter – like I’m coming out of the ark (aka my house) I’ve been cooped up in for months :).  It probably looked like spring to Noah too – everything would have been blooming after all the destruction.  What a sight it must have been.  I painted these Noah’s ark pictures a year or so ago.  I can’t take credit for their concept/design though – I got the idea straight from a Noah’s ark children’s book that is illustrated by Ivan Gatschev and is done in watercolor.  I love the paintings in the book so I tried painting them myself. 

Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord Your God.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but He rested on the seventh day.  Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.  Exodus 20:8-10,11

There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God; for anyone who enters God’s rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from His.  Hebrews 4:9-10

Grady was enjoying his ‘Sabbath-rest’ one afternoon and I decided to paint his restful feet while they were good and still. 

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst.  Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.  The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”  John 4:13-14

Where do you get your water?  From the River Himself or from something this world has to offer?  The lady Jesus was talking to knew all too well (no pun intended) what the world had to offer – she had drunk deeply from it and often.  She was reminded of her sexual sin and shame daily as she came to that well at the most inconvenient and most uncomfortable time of day.  She came at the hottest time of day to draw water because all the other ladies in town came at the cool part of the day and she was going to avoid them – and their looks, comments, snide remarks… no matter what it took.  Coming to this well was a daily reminder of her shame – and her sin.  She was sick and tired – probably more tired than sick – of the reminder.  Can you hear the desperation in her voice as she pleads with Jesus to give her the water He was offering?  Oh how wonderful it would be if she no longer had to come to that well at the hot part of the day and be reminded of the mess she had made of her life.  She would no longer have to avoid the taunts of the other ladies in town.  She would be free.  Jesus had something else in mind though.  He didn’t want to free her in her sin, but to free her from her sin.  After she drank His Living Water, what she use to try so hard to hide she now proclaimed from the streets to everyone… “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did.”  Shame was no longer part of her life.  That’s what happens when we drink from His water.  Our sin no longer brings us shame, but shows His glory.  My past sin is deep too, but my Savior’s arm is long and mighty.  Do you know what I love most about this story in scripture – after she drank the Living Water the scripture says, “Then, leaving her water jar…”  She had no need for that jar any more – precious, just precious! 

Grady is out of town tonight and I am painting my heart out.  He’s at a men’s bible study retreat.  He loves weekends like this – deep in the Word.  I am so thankful for him and love him so much.  I painted this water spout today from an art video painting lesson.  As I was painting it I was thinking of the scripture I wanted to put with it and just couldn’t get this story of the woman at the well off my mind.  I love that story.  I love my Savior – He is mighty to save!