I suppose it’s all in the season. At different times and places, Sabbath rest looks different. While living in a different culture where responsibilities and expectations are often outside of my control, the usual Sabbath rest wasn’t working for me. Our Sundays are disrupted, my exhaustion keeps me in bed savoring every wink of sleep I can steal, and hearing “Mom! Mom!” what feels like a quadrillion times a day had me weary and depleted. When someone challenged me to think back to my eight-year-old self and try to embrace what I once was, it didn’t take long to remember that I used to be a creator.
It started slowly and elementary—I grabbed a journal, and as I read my devotional books I would draw and hand-letter the encouraging words that spoke to me. From there, I started Bible journaling—allowing myself to paint in my Bible. And before long, I created a space where I would hide out for much-needed time to be alone and create art with God. Almost immediately I felt God was speaking to me in new and deeper ways than I had experienced in a long time. I would listen to worship music (sometimes I would dance—don’t tell my girls!), read my Bible, pray, and create whatever was on my mind.
The result didn’t matter and likely would never mean anything to anyone except me, but how God renewed and met me in this time had me in awe. I have continued to hunger for more—more time with God and more time with paint on my hands.
The closeness I gained from this time with the Lord was the balm my weary soul needed—my Sabbath rest. And, as if this wasn’t enough, I discovered how biblical this time spent truly was. In Joshua 4, the Lord tells Joshua to take stones and Joshua obediently built them up as a memorial to tell what the Lord had done. The art I create has become exactly that—my memorial stones of what God has done and is doing in my life.
Like any type of Sabbath rest, it takes intention and discipline. It takes saying no to something else so that I can say yes to my time with the Lord.
It also has been a process for me to allow myself to trust that this unconventional quiet time “counts.”
For much of my Christian walk, I thought my quiet time needed to look a certain way—which included getting up in the wee hours of the morning and praying and reading through my Bible in a year. For this season, that is not working (I’m not a morning person, have you gotten that?). But, I think that’s okay. Because just as God, our father and creator, the greatest artist, created us in his image, I think he also wants us to create, whatever that may be.
And of course, when we invite God into that space, he’ll meet us there. He’ll teach us there. He’ll lead us there, and he continues to renew my soul through the strokes on the canvas. And just as Pablo Picasso says, “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life,” the Spirit cleanses and renews. My soul finds rest—through art.
Related: Sabbath Rest: How to Keep the Sabbath Holy
Photo by Dara Vanden Bosch
Dara Vanden Bosch
Dara Vanden Bosch is a missionary with RCA Global Mission serving in Mozambique. Her heart is to help the most vulnerable, including working with hospice and palliative care in rural areas. She also believes strongly in incorporating the arts into healthcare. She is a wife and a mom to three lovely girls who keep her busy.
