Growing up, I have always been creative to some degree. I would trade back and forth between writing stories and drawing or painting. A few years ago I decided to start drawing again and decided to put my writing on hold for awhile. It turned out that I was better than I thought. I started to draw more on how I felt and how I saw myself and my relationship with Jesus. About a year ago, I knew I wanted to do something with my art. I wanted to show people what I could do  but there was more to it than that. I wanted to show people what God has done for me through my art. I may be writing this blog and I am the one drawing the pictures or painting the paintings but please do not misunderstand me. This blog is not about me. This blog and my art are about God, Jesus Christ, even if sometimes it may not be clear. 

In August of 2015, I lost a close friend of mine. She was a christian so I know where she is but even knowing that, loosing someone, especially so suddenly, is hard. For a long time, I was angry at God for taking my friend away. I was angry because I thought He took her too soon. I was angry because I could not understand how the God that I loved and whom I had known since I was eight, could allow for a woman not much older than I to be taken from this world. To be taken from her son, husband, parents and other family and friends. How could He allow such pain to come into our lives? If God was so good, why did he allow this to happen?  To be honest, this was the first time in my life that I had ever truly doubted God. Anyone who knew me, up to this point, would tell you that I was a model Christian. I was a godly woman who walked with God daily ( at least I did my best each day) and always knew everything happened for a reason. 

“Everything happens for a reason” 

That’s a saying I couldn’t say after my friend died because then I couldn’t validate my anger. If everything happened for a reason, then there was a reason that Jesus called my friend home but I couldn’t see what it was. I couldn’t understand and frankly, I didn’t want to. It was during this time of anxiety and depression that, even though I had turned away from God and was angry with Him, he comforted me through my art. I began to draw and God showed me how much He loved me and that He understood how deeply hurt I was. 

The purpose of this blog is to tell others about how God has brought me from that place of doubt and pain to the point where I want to actively tell others about Jesus and how much He has done for me. I pray that you find comfort in the words that I write or what I draw, if you struggle with similar things. Jesus is the only way that I got through that time in my life and He is the reason I want to write this blog. 

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, except through me.” John 14:6

May God bless you today, 

Rachaele Renae