This is the final post in my Coming Home  series. I hope it has been meaningful to take a deeper look at the different narratives woven through this collection. I have never really considered myself a very judgmental person. I tend to look for the good in people and give them the benefit of the doubt. In many ways, I thought I was doing pretty well in this area until I began to sit more closely with what Jesus has to say in the Sermon on the Mount about judgment and its many

Very closely tied to my tendency toward performance is my tendency to hide. As a kid, I was very good at it. I could find the smallest, most uncomfortable spaces and stay completely still for as long as it took to win a round of hide and seek. I didn’t realize how much of that followed me into adulthood. These days, I don’t hide in cabinets. I hide behind clever jokes, full calendars, task lists, and the all-too-popular, “I’m fine.” Maybe you can relate. Who exactly am I hid

"Coming Home IV" 24 x 24. This piece is part of my Coming Home series , a body of work exploring the movement from apathy toward empathy, attention, and presence. I’ve never been great at listening. My mind is usually racing with five different thoughts during every conversation, podcast, audiobook, or sermon. And more often than I’d like to admit, I’m not actually listening at all. I’m performing. As I’ve investigated why listening is hard for me, I’ve noticed that my desir

“If you work hard enough, you can do anything you want.”   “Next time, I’ll just work harder.”  “ I’ll sleep when I die.”  I’ve thought and said all these things over the course of my adult life. And, other than the last one, these are wonderful principles and ideas to live by, but not when it causes you to start moving in the direction of the last statement.  No rest.  Beneath that striving was more than exhaustion. It was a trust problem. When I decided to create this serie

"Coming Home II" 24 x 48, paper collage, string, and oil on cradled panel. Part of the Coming Home Series . "Coming Home II" represents my ongoing movement from apathy to empathy. A journey I didn’t even realize I needed to take until I found myself sitting in the quiet presence of the Lord, morning after morning, slowly becoming aware of how much I had closed off. We live in an overstimulated world. There is always something demanding our attention. And yet, ironically, i

"Coming Home I - VI" Paper collage, string, and oil paint on cradled panels of various sizes. Available. This series presents one tree viewed from six different angles across six panels that together span 20 feet. Beneath the painted branches of each perspective lies a collage narrative exploring a different facet of the transformation I've experienced this past year. Same tree, six vantage points, one story of coming home to who God made me to be. If you've been following m