Today I'm happy to welcome back guest author and blogger, Betty Slade, as she shares about her love for painting, and one painting in particular, and how that ties back to her book series.

Taming Wild Hearts, Book One from the Disappointment Valley Series has recently been released and received with great reviews.

If you haven’t posted a review on Amazon, please do so. It helps the ratings for this book. It also makes me happy to read great swelling from those who read it. Thank you.

In marketing this book, one of the ways I’ve been able to make my book successful was to build an audience through a monthly newsletter.  Because of my years teaching watercolors at a vacation resort, painting and teaching oils, and owning an art gallery, I geared my newsletters to the creative hearts, artists and writers.

It doesn’t matter if we express in paints or words, creating is about drawing from the gifts the Lord has placed in our hearts. I’ve been blessed to have been an artist for 45 years. In 1992 I became a serious writer and have pursued writing since then. I showcased this painting in one of my newsletters.

When I painted the oil above, Worthy, because of the power of God in us, I referenced it to a vessel described in 2 Corinthians 4:7 KJV, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.”

This painting was inspired by a discarded cracked pitcher from my Grandmother Jessie’s dusty attic. The crack started at the top and worked itself down. In 1960, just married, I took my Sweet Al to my homeplace in Manassa, Colorado. I asked my grandmother if I could have one of her keepsakes.

I saw this large white pot and asked, “Could I have this?”

“Why do you want that old thing? It’s cracked. It doesn’t hold water.”

“Because it belongs to you,” I said at the time.

The pitcher meant more to me than it did to her. She saw no value in the damaged pot, but I saw my history and family. Everyone who used it, handled it, and carried water in this antique wash pot, was part of who I was and am today.

In 2000 I painted this still life in oil (20X30). When I look at this painting, my spirit is full of joy. It records where I was at the time. I call this painting Worthy. Worthy of what it holds—beautiful memories, beautiful floral arrangements, and part of my family’s history.

I see myself in this pot. I definitely have cracks. I’m worthy, not for what I have or don’t have, but because of the heavenly treasure that God placed in me fifty-five years ago.

 So many pieces of my art have been sold, given away, lost, or but this one hangs in my living room. One of my grandchildren, (4 ^th generation) asked for this painting, not out of any sense of family history, but because she liked the painting. Could I say “no” to her?

She sees something different. Maybe it matches her bedspread or curtains. It’s for her to hold it dear for how it speaks to her. Not as I know it to be.

I’ve lived with great expectations for myself and others. I am learning, if we live a full life, we will have cracks, brokenness, and bruises. Yes, even be discarded into the heap pile of humanity. The cracks remind us we are human.

Now broken in many pieces, can’t be glued any more, this actual pitcher has been thrown away, but the painting remains and it will live in the heart of the one possessing it. I told my story. She will tell her own story and what it means to her.