Leaves the Ninety Nine Painting

This is an original 36 x 24 mixed media painting (oil, charcoal, fine milled plaster) on stretched canvas over a solid wood frame, framed in gold plein air frame. Each painting is created and shipped out of Greensboro, NC, with title and signature on back. This isn’t my typical work. But it’s Sunday, and I’m a seminary dropout and past lifetime writer, so a divergence from the usual art and post sneaks in from time to time. A story. Kev and I were in Zimbabwe, and I had finished teaching a group of women I had almost nothing in common with a lesson on suffering. What a joke. I didn’t know their kind of suffering, and had I known their stories beforehand I would have prepared a different teaching. I was with my friend Judy, who lived most of her life and raised a family in that beautiful war torn country. When the evening was over I spoke with a woman who told me about a time during the war. She had lost everything. Their families violently slaughtered and farms burned to nothing…kind of everything. It was a dangerous time, but Judy’s husband Lynn was their pastor, and those people were his flock. He promised them he would always make the trip through the country to see them, to be with them, to encourage them, to pray with them, no matter what. No matter the war or fear. A good shepherd always leaves the 99 to seek the 1. Always. No matter the danger. They don’t hide in fear and forget their own on the outside. That story changed my life, and it has never been fresher on my mind and heavier on my heart than it is today. Ever felt like the 1 needing to be found? Yeah me too. There’s Good News for people like you and me. There’s a Shepherd who is always faithful.