In the fall of 2008, while I was planning my wedding, a strong, courageous friend of mine was fighting for his life.

At age 34, Daniel Smith was vibrant, healthy, and full of promise. He was finishing medical school and running more marathons than I could count. He seemed to have his whole life ahead of him. On October 22, Daniel lost his 6-month long battle against squamous cell oral cancer.

I heard the news after coming back from my honeymoon. I know I cannot adequately describe how this news affected me, but I will try:

I experienced deep sadness, sympathy for his family and the painful sting of loss, all of which is to be expected. What I did not expect was to be confronted with the fear that Nate could be taken from me in a similar way.

Life was now fragile and unpredictable….fleeting. Of course, it always has been, but now I had this new person in my life that I wanted to hold on to so tightly.

For days, I considered the possibility of losing Nate. How would I be able to go on without this amazing man in my life? But this couldn’t really happen, could it? After all, God had given him to me; wasn’t that a guarantee that my next 50 years would be wonderful?

As naïve as that sounds, it really is how I felt. The evening I heard about Daniel’s passing, I was struggling to balance loving fiercely with a willingness to let go. Then something happened that I can only attribute to God’s leading.

I saw my next painting in my mind, as clearly as you are seeing it now on your screen. It was an image of a girl playing in the field with her father. He had just let go of her hand, and she was running away, but smiling back at him. I knew I was supposed to get it on canvas.

“Mine For a Moment” is my answer to the struggle. It’s my reminder that we must not love less in order to avoid the pain of potential loss. The people in our lives, our children, spouses, friends and family members, are here with us now, and “now” is really all we can hold on to.

Nate is “mine for a moment,” and in this moment I will love him completely, knowing that his life is not in my hands, but in the hands of his Creator, who has seen each of his days before even one of them began.

I hope you will share this painting with someone who may need to see it. It is dedicated to Daniel Smith and to little Sadie Isabella Stout, whose life ended just 9 days after it began. My heart goes out to the families and friends of those whose moments here on earth seemed too few.

Let me know if you’d like to be contacted when prints are available of this painting. (Update as of February 2010, they are now available!  You may visit the painting’s website to order or to donate: MineForAMoment.com.

See the painting on my website.

Below is an excerpt from Daniel’s blog. He wrote this less than a month after his diagnosis:

Sunday, May 11, 2008
Moments

Time isn’t grouped in days anymore. I am much more aware of moments. Some of those moments find me in high places warmly blanketed by the prayers of faithful family and friends. Other moments find me in sad disbelief as the majority of my body disagrees with the test results. Some moments find me thankful for evidence of God’s movement before the most dramatic challenges have even begun. Other moments find me terrified of the unknown.

But, if I truly believe Him, I can’t wallow in fear of the unknown. All of my unknowns have been known by Him since long before I was even born. He has not been caught off guard. He is ready, and He is more than able. A friend shared this verse earlier today: “Do not be terrified, do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.” -Joshua 1:9

Indeed, He is … and forevermore will be.

I was recently commissioned to paint a lovely woman named Loma. She lived a long, happy life, and recently passed away in her 90’s. The family wanted to memorialize her in a painting, which will be displayed above the mantle in the grandchildren’s play room.

Loma was a vibrant, amazing woman, and had stunning blue eyes, porcelain skin, and high cheekbones. Sherry, my client, wanted the painting to depict Loma in her youth, and a traditional head and shoulders style portrait simply would not do!

Sherry provided me with several reference photos from the 1940’s, all black and white and showing signs of their age. I realized quickly that this portrait would be a challenging one, but I knew how important the project was. The photo we decided to use was of Loma sitting on an uneven bar in someone’s backyard. Sherry mentioned that Loma had always loved sunflowers, so it seemed fitting to have a field of the beautiful flowers in the background of the painting. I went on a search to find the perfect field – one that had a fence that we could place her on.

After selecting the reference photos, I used my Photoshop program and my graphic design background to lay out the composition and get Sherry’s approval before starting to paint. We agreed on details such as what color to make her skirt stripes, and whether she preferred a white fence or a natural one, and then the magic began…

I spent about 2 weeks working on this painting.  I was pleased with how it progressed, and enjoyed making decisions such as shadow placement, how to paint the sky, and what to do with the lower part of the fence and ground without reference material.

The end result: a 24×30 painting of a “moment in time” that never actually happened! The next time someone asks why they should invest in artwork rather than just printing a standard photograph on canvas (which seems to be quite popular these days), I’ll tell them the story of Loma and her sunflower field. 

The Inspiration…

I saw this painting in my mind more than 2 years before I began painting it. I was reading I Peter 1:18-20:

“For you know that God paid a ransom to save you from the empty life you inherited from your ancestors. And the ransom he paid was not mere gold or silver. It was the precious blood of Christ, the sinless, spotless Lamb of God. God chose him as your ransom long before the world began, but he has now revealed him to you in these last days.”

I got a vision for a painting of God holding a lamb, both loving him, but also knowing He had to let him go. The lamb, of course, is Christ. We are also all biblically like the lamb in the painting, and God is our shepherd who loves us.

Next, you’ll read the incredible story of how this painting came to be, complete with never-before-seen photos of the day of the shoot. I still can’t believe how it all happened…

The Models

The first thing I felt like I needed to do was to find someone who raised sheep. I live in Brentwood, TN, and this was no easy task. After calling multiple farms only to find out that there were no places nearby who still did this, I put my search on hold. Then, a year and a half later at an art show, a lady came to me and asked if I could design a business card for her sheep breeding business. I couldn’t believe it! I should know by now not to be surprised that God would work like this, but I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, it was October and lambs aren’t born until the spring, so the wait continued.

The Bearded Gentleman…

The next obvious thing that I needed to do was to find a bearded man to agree to help me. I was on the lookout! One Sunday, a friend called to invite me to lunch after church at Panera. I showed up only to find out that no one was there. But before I left, I saw a man who was perfect for my painting. He was eating with his family, but I just went right up to him and gave him my card, explaining what I wanted to do and would he help me? He was a Christian and was thrilled to help. He plays Santa at Christmas, and he said he could probably wait until spring to shave his beard.

The Perfect Lamb… Unbelievable!

January 1, Paul called me and said that his wife was really tired of his beard, and wanted to know exactly when the lambs were due to be born. I still thought it would be several months, so I was a little nervous that he wouldn’t be willing to wait. I called the breeder immediately and she said “You won’t believe this, but a little white male lamb was born on Christmas Eve completely out of season. We’re bringing all of the animals in tomorrow – can you come then? They grow really fast.” My jaw hit the floor… this was coming together better than I ever could have hoped, and it was becoming obvious to me that what was happening was far bigger than my little vision for a painting.

My Amazing Photographer…

Until then, I had only worked with one photographer that I trusted to understand my artistic vision and capture it on film. His name is Riley Spiller, but unfortunately he lives in Missouri and rarely comes to Nashville. I had to have a talented photographer that I trusted, and I was willing to beg and plead for him to come to Tennessee the next day. I called him and, again, God amazed me in his provision. Riley had another shoot to do that weekend (in Nashville) and had just pulled into town! He said tomorrow morning was free and he was happy to do the shoot on a moment’s notice. By this point, I was on cloud nine. Within an hour, everything had come together for a painting that had been on my heart for the past two years. It was about to be a reality.

The Photoshoot…

I picked up everyone and we made the hour and a half drive to the ranch. I met the star (we named him Christopher), and we found a good place in one of the barns to take the photos. Paul asked how I wanted him to act with the lamb. I said, “just love him.” He was a natural I wasn’t sure how the young lamb would act away from his mother. I had visions of him trying to kick his way out of Paul’s arms the whole time, leaving us with only one or two decent shots. Instead, he just melted into Paul’s chest for the whole shoot and quietly let out a little “baaaaa” every now and then to his mother who was in a nearby stall. We took over 200 photos that morning.

The Hidden Cross…

I can’t explain how it felt that day, seeing my vision being captured on camera. When I came home and selected the photo to work from, I noticed that part of the barn door behind Paul looked like a cross! I ended up adding a nail with a hint of red near it for added symbolism on this area. The entire process took only 2 1/2 weeks, which is almost unheard of compared to how long I typically spend on large paintings like this. I hope that it will continue to touch people who see it, and that it will always bring God glory instead of me. I think you’ll agree after reading that this one was truly out of my hands from the beginning.

Thanks so much for reading.