A few weeks ago I flew out to California to take up residence in a church for one week.

My task: Four murals on four different walls of the new church nursery.

The theme: Hannah raising up Samuel for the Glory of God. 

Before flying out, I sketched out my design concepts and painted color studies on canvas. Because my time would be very limited (four murals in seven days is a STRETCH), I knew I needed to have a precise plan so that once I got there I could hammer everything out as efficiently as possible. 

For each day I was there I worked all day and into the night. This was my first time ever living in a church (they had an apartment for me above the sanctuary) and it was…an interesting experience to say the least. The church was full of people during the day, often peeking in to see how my progress was coming. But things got very quiet once dark descended and I was all alone. 

I thought I’d be more spooked than I was, but there’s something about being in a church that makes it easy to remember how close God is to us, and how a quick prayer for courage can transform eeriness into serenity. 

I was working at a quick pace and felt pretty good about my progress during the first part of the week, but by day five I hadn’t yet completed any of the murals – I had partially completed three and the fourth wall was still blaringly white. I worked as quickly as I could to finish the three interior rooms, and on my last full day at the church there was still one entire mural left to complete – the last and the largest. 

At this point I was starting to panic, because I didn’t know if I’d actually be able to pull off an entire mural in one day. And California is quite a jaunt from my home of East Texas, so it’s not like I could just pop back in to finish up. 

But I steeled myself for a long day of nonstop work, asked God for strength, and buckled down.

As I prepared my paint for the day, I thought to myself, “You know, it takes a lot of courage to paint a picture on a blank wall.” This hadn’t occurred to me until I embarked on that last mural, the pure white wall boring into me with its blinding blankness. “What if I mess this up?” – a fear I hadn’t had in painting the previous three walls.

Maybe it was the last ditch effort of the devil, trying to prevent God’s truth from leaving my paintbrush so that it wouldn’t inspire the youth who will be raised up within these walls. 

Needless to say, I only listened to that voice for about 30 seconds – there wasn’t time to delay! – and then slapped some paint on that wall. I miraculously finished the final mural and got the whole place cleaned up just a little before midnight the night before I left to fly home.

Once I finished cleaning up and got a good look at what I had painted, I felt more accomplished than I think I ever have in my life. One week of hard work for the glory of God. Four beautiful murals. An experience I will never forget. 

Prints of the four murals I painted are now available for purchase, and I also have those four original color studies on canvas. If you are interested in the originals, please reach out!