Faith on Canvas

Aboriginal Youth
The one titled “Aboriginal Youth” is simply because I really love the aboriginal people. I think that they are so very beautiful, and I love to draw them – especially in chalk pastels. I just don’t get enough time to do many.

Jordan Come Forth
“Jordan Come Forth” I did in Jordan three years ago. I was with a group of artists and we spent a day asking God for a passage from the Bible to illustrate (individually) and did it. When I prayed I felt God led me to the passage about Lazarus.

As I looked, I felt there were a lot of similarities between Lazarus and Jordan – he had a sister who was alive, and Jordan has a sister country in Israel who is God’s, but Jordan is dead to God; friends told Jesus He might be killed if he went to Lazarus, and Christians are hesitant to evagelise in Jordan (but Jesus still went, and God’s people still go); Jesus said it was for God’s glory that it happened, and only God’s glory will breath God’s life into Jordan; etc.

I felt challenged by God to use a style that was new, and so the sketchy pointed folds, rather than soft flowing ones, and stylised. Through it all I felt that God was calling Jordan forth into His life, just as Jesus called Lazarus forth to life – that God’s glory might be seen.

Breathe Together

“Breathe Together'”was something that God gave me a couple of years ago, and is about His calling us all in unison – from wherever, and no matter what our skin or background. We are to ‘breathe together’ as His children – and then move out in strength to show His love, grace, and redemption.

The Road You Choose
“The Road you Choose” has a poem that goes with it. It grew out of a short time spent in Durban, where I met small boys about the age of my son, then – 7 years old – who were falling asleep off their seats at 8am! They had been up all night sniffing glue to stay awake and beg for money for their families. It struck me that the children were paying for the road that their parents had chosen – their hardships and tears were not of their own making.

Here is the poem: “The Road You Choose” Pray for me, my little one, and past hurts not yet, undone. The searing pain of bitterness, not yet freed by forgiveness, sows a rot not well lost; leaves the land a heavy cross, to bear. And hope, not yet sown, can not bloom amongst the rubble. The tears you cry and childhood lost, a harvest reaped from fear, distrust; the wounds you wear, you aught not own; bred from anger I choose to hold … … it is the road I chose.

It made my heart break to see these kids. And also made me so aware of the responsibility we have as parents.

Narelle is originally from Queensland, Australia. For the past three years she has been birthing a ministry called “Art Refuge”. This will use art to reach out to those in the local communityand bring God’s healing. She strongly believes that not only does art have a voice that God wants to use, but that God is calling His artists to step up and use their creative giftings in the battle for souls.