When you enter a person’s home, you get a good sense of who they are by what is hanging on their walls: family portraits, frames filled with abstract color, canvases with scripted phrases or verses that state a family’s mission and purpose. In more modern homes, walls are left purposefully blank and uncluttered to invoke feelings of calm and peace in a chaotic world.
The room in my home that best tells the stories of our family is our den. There is a family portrait hanging on the wall as you immediately enter the room. There’s a giant, antique scoreboard hanging over a shuffleboard table because I like unique, quirky things and we enjoy playing games together in this room. There is an entirely, way-too-big TV on one wall, because we love to watch football games and movies together as a family. There is a giant Texas flag with cattle horns mounted above it next to pictures of my family’s old farm and a shadow box of my husband’s fringed chaps, sheriff vest and tiny cowboy boots that he used to wear as a kid all over the ranch he grew up on. There are photos of my kids and an old, silk cowboy neck scarf that I found at an antique store in Colorado. There is a dartboard hanging in one corner because we all love to play and it’s just one more thing that brings us together. This room is like an art gallery of random things that I love and a reflection of who we are and what we value: time spent together. It’s where our lives are lived the most. It is home.
Much like my house, I get to choose what I fill the space and time in my life with. I can choose to adorn it with what is important to me. I have spent the last few years strategically filling and rearranging the walls of my inner-life with works of art that matter. Serving the Lord and connection with His people are two of the most meaningful masterpieces I have found.
For the last two and a half years, I have had the privilege of being in a Prize31 small group Bible study and helping lead and teach some of that time. Each study has marked me in some way. It started with 2 Timothy. Week after week, we unpacked the words of Paul in his final letter and his words changed me. They taught, reproved, corrected, and trained me in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16) just like they promised to do, and the walls of my heart are forever marked and adorned with that truth.
Hearing the stories of the ladies in our group: stories of healing, of mercy, of God’s grace and power and their testimonies of overcoming, will forever hang in my spirit as works of art, showing off the beautiful work of the Master’s skillful hand. By choosing to teach and serve in a new way than I had before allowed the Lord to work in and through me. My prayer is that this part of my journey has marked me in a way that others see and are drawn to the goodness of God. Each study is a memory of how God has shown Himself to me through His Word when I chose to take the time and dive in. The revelations of His Word have become the heirlooms of my life that I want to decorate my heart, my mind, my spirit, and my life with, and I am grateful for the women who share their lives every week and have marked the walls of my heart forever.