A couple of months ago I met a sweet miniature donkey named Midge, and I felt compelled to paint a watercolor of her. Midge’s best friend (and owner) is a friend of mine, and I wanted to give her a painting of Midge. And so, the adventure began.

As I progressed from photoshoot to sketches and then to painting, I felt a mysterious inner prompting moving me ahead. As time went on, I realized that the Midge project was becoming bigger than I expected – bigger in terms of the number of sketches and paintings and big in its impact on my journey as an artist and on my friend. The impact is beginning to ripple out to other friends of Midge.

God has used Midge to lead me to a new place of freedom and confidence in His gift and show me His purposes in it. I have had a narrow view of what I considered my ministry, and it didn’t include art. Things began to change a couple of years ago when a dear friend from the desert helped me see that I was “putting God in a box.” Well, Midge has been helping me take the lid off the box. Thanks, Midge.

God has given each of us a gift fitted to our own personality and wiring. Each uniquely expresses some facet of His infinite goodness and limitless beauty. His Spirit is the mysterious inner force that compels and empowers us in its expression and leads us to those He wants to touch through it.

He is blessed when we embrace the gift and sink into the rhythm and flow of the Spirit’s prompting in its expression. He then turns the blessing back on us and onto others. Freedom breaks upon the gift like the rising golden sun when we follow that prompting to serve one another in love. Who knows what He will do with it or how far the ripples will spread? God is so good.

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us new in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago (Ephesians 2:10).

Click here to view the watercolors and read more of Midge’s story: https://pamteschner.com/gallery/