Heaven Scent

O Lord, how priceless is your unfailing love!  Psalm 36:7

Heaven Scent, Plein air oil painting by Lee Boynton

Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of Your wings.

They feast on the abundance of Your house;

You give them drink from Your river of delights.

For with You is the fountain of life;

In Your light we see light.  Psalm 36: 7-9

The story behind this painting:

I took a class on writing memoir this past winter. We were given the assignment to write a short piece that would evoke emotion through the description of a place.

Heaven Scent

by Martha Boynton    

    “You were heaven sent!”  The words echoed in my mind. 

    The pressure was on. It was the opening day of Paint Annapolis 2012, the last year the annual plein air painting competition was held downtown during the month of September. I could picture the woman saying those words, her hands on her cheeks, eyes wide, as she watched Lee paint the view of Spa Creek from her dock: "You were heaven sent!" And I pictured Lee painting. He was in “the zone,” he would say, a perfect oneness with God, light flowing from his brush. He painted with all the confident flare of a maestro conducting Beethoven’s Symphony #9: Ode to Joy. 

He was so excited to bring the painting home to show me later that morning. He propped it up on the back of our couch, and we stood back together to admire it.

"Wow! The river of delight. In His light we see light," I said, quoting one of our favorite Scripture verses. "We should call this painting Heaven Scent. We laughed.

The painting won the People's Choice award at the exhibition at the end of the competition, but it didn't sell that night. We brought it home and hung it above our couch where it could bring heaven to earth in our living room.

Heaven sent. Heaven Scent. The painting galvanized my attention the first time I entered our living room knowing Lee would never again stand beside me for an unveiling. And I would never again hear his voice. My eyes clung to every detail he had captured so effortlessly that brilliant morning. The subtle harmony of peaches and lavenders reflected in the water, the stillness, the American flag hanging limp in a pool of first light, a sailboat at rest on a mooring, two people in a kayak, the trees in full leaf, and St. Mary's steeple pointing upward, like a compass needle.   

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Racing the Storm

The will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us. Billy Graham

Racing the Storm, oil painting by Lee Boynton

Psalm 23 --  by Leslie Brandt from Psalms Now

The Lord is my constant companion.

There is no need that He cannot fulfill

   whether His course for me points to the mountaintops of glorious joy

   or the valleys of human suffering,

He is by my side.

He is ever present with me.

When I tread the dark streets of danger

   and even when I flirt with death itself,

He will not leave me.

When the pain is severe,

He is near to comfort.

When the burden is heavy,

He is there to lean upon.

When depression darkens my soul,

He touches me with eternal joy.

When I feel completely alone and empty,

He fills the aching vacuum with His power.

My security is in His promise to be near me always

   and in the knowledge that He will never let me go.

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Still Waters

He leadeth me beside the still waters, He restoreth my soul. Psalm 23: 2

Still Waters, photo by our friend Catherine Libeert

This is what the sovereign Lord says,

"In returning and rest you shall be saved; 

In quietness and trust is your strength... (Isaiah 30:15)

God Takes the Time to Do Everything Right

Isaiah 30: 15-18 (Message Translation)

God, the Master, has this solemn counsel:

"Your salvation requires you to turn back to Me and stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.

Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on Me -- 

  the very thing you've been unwilling to do.

You've said, 'Nothing doing!' We'll rush off on horseback!'

You'll rush off, all right! Just not far enough!

You've said, 'We'll ride off on fast horses!'

Do you think your pursuers ride old nags?

Think again: A thousand of you will scatter before one attacker.

Before a mere five you'll all run off.

There'll be nothing left of you --

   a flagpole on a hill with no flag,

   a signpost on a roadside with the sign torn off."

But God's not finished. He's waiting to be gracious to you.

He's gathering strength to show mercy to you.

God takes the time to do everything right -- everything.

Those who wait around for Him are the blessed ones!

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No Wave Too High

He calms the storm, so its waves are still. Psalm 107:29

No wave too high... watercolor by Lee Boynton

Sacrificial Love

There is no wave too high for Me to still.

There is no valley too deep for Me to fill.

There is no trial for which My arm's too short,

No tribulation through which I won't lend you my support.

I am yours and you are Mine,

So deeply are you rooted in the Vine,

Heaven and earth may pass away,

But My love for you will never fade.

The love between the two of us

Reflects My sacrifice upon the cross.

Imbued with power from on high,

Fear not, nor ever question why.

Blessed with mercy from above,

Spread abroad My tender love.

The story behind this poem

Lee and I went through periods of great testing, the refiner's fire turned up seven times hotter than usual. The Lord grew our faith during those times. We were clay in His good hands. While in the fires of testing, we came to know Him as absolutely faithful to His Word, our Trustworthy Provider, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, our Loving, Ever-present Father, our Prince of Peace.

On Good Friday, 2001, I woke up at 3:00am and couldn't go back to sleep. I got out of bed to pray on my knees, and the words to this poem came to me, line by line.  

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The Dancing Princess Bride

The person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. 1Corinthians 6:17

Last June, six weeks after Lee had departed for his home in heaven, I attended a conference on creativity at our church. I was in deep, deep mourning, my heart completely overcome with grief. No one could have begun to describe the level of grief I felt in those first weeks without Lee by my side.

Lee and I, and others at church, had been talking about doing this conference for several years. Our friend Sylvia, a dancer, had taken this dream in hand, and hired the conference leader. It was actually going to happen. Lee was cheering Sylvia on, and he and I planned to attend the conference together. We all wanted to see a renaissance in the arts in our region, beauty restored, a fresh new face on the arts in the church. Artistic gifts unlocked, a renewal of a sense of wonder, inspiration to flow... We are created in God's image (Genesis 1:27) What was holding us back?

"Every person here is an artist. Don't listen to the lie that you can't draw a straight line," the conference leader said. She challenged us. After lunch the 30 women and a handful of men attending the conference had the opportunity to paint. Many had never touched a paint brush before, or thought they ever would! We were asked to paint a picture of ourselves before the heart of God.

True, beautiful art flows from the heart. My heart was broken that day -- shattered in a million little aching slivers and shards. The paint brush felt stiff and awkward in my hand. Painting was Lee's arena, not mine. He was gone and I was being asked to paint?! To put on his big shoes and paint myself in front of the heart of God?! I was finding new, unfamiliar aspects of God's heart I wasn't sure I liked.

I could not reason in my mind how I would ever put something on that canvas in the hour we were given. I was still very numb, unable to think. I said, "Okay Lord, this is entirely Yours. Whatever You want on that canvas will have to come from You."

The Lord took me by the hand right after I said this prayer. I found myself drawing a picture of  a dancing princess bride -- in front of a heart. I painted the heart purple. I realized later that the purple heart was very significant. According to the internet, the Purple Heart medal is awarded to members of the armed forces of the U.S. who are wounded in battle and posthumously to the next of kin of those who have been killed.

I am the bride dancing in front of God's purple heart. He knows my heart. He knows every painful step He has ever asked me to take. He knows the sacrifice -- where He is taking me, and why. I am His bride, and I can dance before Him.

Lee was known at our church for his joyous proclamation of the freedom he received through Jesus, his Lord. The freedom we receive through Jesus. Freedom was Lee's victory cry -- and now it is mine! 

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The Joy of Intimacy

Just married, April 26, 1980

Marriage is a metaphor for the mystical union between the bride, a born again believer, and the Bridegroom King, Jesus. The bride belongs to the Bridegroom. (John 3:29)

The person who is joined to the Lord is one sprit with him. 1 Corinthians 6:17

One last excerpt from 1000 Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp

Jesus says there is no other way to take up the faith but complete union: "I am in My Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:20). I am stilled. I think on being in Christ and Him being in me and He is wind whisperer and I am leaf and He stirs and I tremble: "Remain in Me, and I will remain in you" (John 15:4). He's calling me to graft on, become one with the True Vine, the vine the biblical symbol of joy, festivity ... fullness. He's calling to come celebrate being made one, and in Him, to bear the fruit of the full life round.

I see it clear, June coming in bright on the breeze through open window: there is no real reality, no full life, outside of the relationship with Love, because God Himself wraps Himself eternally in relationship: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit existing in relationship, an encircling dance of communion sweetest. God is love -- everywhere! everything! -- and He can only be love because He exists in triune relationship. Before I ever breathed or the earth ever spun, the love within the Godhead orbited, Father loving Son "before the creation of the world" (John 17:24) and when I am in union with Christ, I too am lavished with the love the Father has for the Son. In union, that love is mine -- ours!  I can't simple ignore His serenade because I'm unsure, uncomfortable, uninterested, thinking I've claimed Christ as my Savior already anyways. God is relationship and He woos us to relationship and there is nothing with God if there is no relationship.

Mystical Union. This, the highest degree of importance. God as Husband in sacred wedlock, bound together, body and soul, fed by His body, quenched by His blood -- this is where eucharisteo leads. Lover bestows upon the Beloved gifts, the Beloved gives thanks for those gifts and enters into the musical love union. If God, who could have any life of His choosing, finds the most satisfying joy in communion within the Trinity, wouldn't I?

I know and don't know why I am afraid. How receptive to God do I really want to be?

God makes love with grace upon grace, every moment a making of His love for us. And He invites the turning over of the hand, the opening and saying Yes with thanks. Then God lays down all His fullness into all the emptiness. I am in Him. He is in me. I embrace God in the moment. I give Him thanks and I bless God and we meet and couldn't I make love to God, making every moment love for Him? To know Him the way Adam knew Eve. Spirit skin to spirit skin.

This is what His love means. I want it: union. This is the one gift He longs for in return for His unending gifts, and this even I could give Him, and anywhere. Anywhere -- in the kitchen scrubbing potatoes, in the arching cathedrals in Paris, in the spin of laundry and kids and washing toilets -- anywhere I can have intimate communion with the Maker of heaven and earth. 

Thank You, God, for the bread of now...for Your Son and sacrifice...for the love song You keep singing, the gift of Yourself that You keep giving...for the wild wonder of You in this moment.

This is His song!  I rejoice in you. Come rejoice in Me. The song that plays the world awake, the song that fuels joy: Enjoy Me. Enjoy Me!

Is there a greater way to love the Giver than to delight wildly in His gifts.

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The Flame of Joy

Pride slays thanksgiving...A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves. Henry Ward Beecher

Summer Light by Lee Boynton

An Excerpt from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You are:

Can we really expect joy all the time?

I know it well after a day smattered with rowdiness and worn ragged with bickering, that I may feel disappointed and the despair may flood high, but to give thanks is an action and rejoice is a verb and these are not mere pulsing emotions. While I may not always feel joy, God asks me to give thanks in all things, because He knows that the feeling of joy begins in the action of thanksgiving.

True saints know that the place where all the joy comes from is far deeper than that of feelings; joy comes from the place of the very presence of God. Joy is God and God is joy and joy doesn't negate all other emotions -- joy  transcends all other emotions...

Joy is a flame that glimmers only in the palm of the open and humble hand. In an open and humble palm, released and surrendered to receive, light dances, flickers happy. The moment the hand is clenched tight, fingers all pointing toward self and rights and demands, joy is snuffed out. Anger is the lid that suffocates joy until she lies limp and lifeless. And for me, it's a cosmic-numbing notion that far eclipses the domestic moment. It speaks to the whole of my life and the vision brands me: The demanding of my own will is the singular force that smothers out joy -- nothing else.

"Pride slays thanksgiving... A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves." Dare I ask what I think I deserve? A life of material comfort? A life free of all trials, all hardship, all suffering? A life with no discomfort, no inconveniences? Are there times that a sense of entitlement is what inflates self, detonates anger, offends God, extinguishes joy?

What do I really deserve? Thankfully, God never gives what is deserved, but instead, God graciously, passionately offers gifts, our bodies, our time, our very lives. God does not give rights but imparts responsibilities --- response-abilities -- inviting us to respond to His love-gifts.

...The secret of joy's flame: Humbly let go. Let go of trying to do, let go of trying to control...let go of my own way, let go of my own fears. Let God blow His wind, His trials, oxygen for joy's fire. Leave the hand open and be. Be at peace. Bend the knees and be small and let God give what God chooses to give because He only gives love, and whisper thanks. This is the fuel for joy's flame. Fullness of joy is discovered only in the emptying of will. And I can empty. I can empty because counting His graces has awakened me to how He cherishes me, holds me, passionately values me. I can empty because I am full of His love. I can trust.

I can let go.

Only self can kill joy.

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Unfailing Love

The Lord is my Best Friend and Shepherd...Psalm 23:1 

The Good Shepherd, oil painting by Lee Boynton

Psalm 23 -- The anointed words of this familiar, much beloved psalm, were penned by David, a shepherd boy tending his sheep on the back side of the desert. They are as alive today as when they first burned and pounded in David's heart, begging to be released. Think of the thousands upon thousands of anxious, grieving hearts this psalm have soothed and comforted over the generations.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd. We are His well-tended sheep. He leaves the 99 to find the one that is lost.

The Story Behind the Painting:

Nick Boucher, the young man who posed for this painting, had been raised under challenging circumstances. His mother, a single parent, was a drug addict. Nick fell into this same dark pit when he was in his early teens. But the Good Shepherd found him.  The word mouth is "bouche" in French. Nick's Savior and Lord -- the Lover of His Soul --holds and kisses him with His perfect, intimate love every day -- with the kisses of His mouth, that is with His Word!

Psalm23  The Passion Translation

The Lord is my Best Friend and my Shepherd.

I always have more than enough.

He offers a resting place for me in his luxurious love.

His tracks take me to an oasis of peace, the quiet brook of bliss.

That's where he restores and revives my life.

   He opens before me pathways to God's pleasure,

   and leads me along in his footsteps of righteousness

   so that I can honor his name.

Lord, even when your path takes me through

   the valley of deepest darkness,

   fear will never conquer me, for you already have!

  You remain close to me and lead me through it all the way.

   Your authority is my strength and my peace.

   The comfort of your love takes away my fear.

   I'll never be lonely, for you are near.

You become my delicious feast

   even when my enemies dare to fight.

   You anoint me with the fragrance of your Holy Spirit;

   you give me all I can drink of you until my heart overflows.

So why would I fear the future?

   For I'm being pursued only by your goodness and unfailing love.

   Then afterwards -- when my life is through,

   I'll return to your glorious presence to be forever with you!

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Thanks Builds Trust

Trauma's storm can mask the Christ and feelings can lie. Ann Voskamp

Be still and know that I am God (Psalm 46:10)

An excerpt from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:

How do you count on life when the hopes don't add up?

A morning in late November, joy shimmers.

The hopes don't have to add up. The blessings do. Count blessings and discover Who can be counted on.

Isn't that what had been happening, quite unexpectedly? This living a lifestyle of intentional gratitude became an unintentional test in the trustworthiness of God -- and in counting blessings I stumbled upon the way out of fear. Can God be counted on? Count blessings and find out how many of His bridges have already held. Had I not trusted all these years because I had not counted?

I glanced back in the mirror to the concrete bridge, the one I had boldly driven straight across without a second thought, and I see truth reflected back at me: Every time fear freezes and worry writhes, every time I surrender to stress, aren't I advertising the unreliability of God? That I really don't believe? But if I'm grateful to the Bridge Builder for the crossing of a million strong bridges, thankful for a million faithful moments, my life speaks my belief and I trust Him again.

I fearlessly cross the next bridge.

I shake my head at the blinding wonder of it: Trust is the bridge from yesterday to tomorrow, built with planks of thanks. Remembering frames up gratitude. Gratitude lays out the planks of trust. I can walk the planks -- from known to unknown -- and know: He holds.

I could walk unafraid.

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A Light Has Dawned

All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen.  Ralph Waldo Emerson

A Light Has Dawned

Except from One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are:

Stress is a joy stealer. It stands in direct opposition to what Jesus directly, tenderly commands: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me." (John 14:1) I know an untroubled heart relaxes, trusts, leans assured into His ever-dependable arms. Trust, it's the antithesis of stress. "Oh the joys of those who trust the Lord" (Psalm 40:4). But how to learn to trust like that? Can trust be conjured up simply by sheer will, on command? I've got to get this thing, what it means to trust, to gut-believe in the good touch of God toward me, because it's true: I can't fill with joy until I learn how to trust: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in Him, so that you may overflow (Romans 15:13). The full life, the one spilling joy and peace, happens only as I come to trust the caress of the Lover, Lover who never burdens His children with shame or self-condemnation but keeps stroking the fears with gentle grace.

How can I trust when a troubled, joy-shriveled heart has pumped fear through the stiff veins of all my years?

If I believe, then I must let go and trust. Why do I stress? Belief in God has to be more than mental assent, more than a cliched exercise in cognition. Even the demons believe (James 2:19). What is saving belief if it isn't the radical dare to wholly trust? I read in one of the thick commentaries, that the word pisteuo is used two hundred twenty two (222) time is the New Testament, most often translated as "belief." But it changes everything when I read that pisteuo ultimately means "to put one's faith in; to trust." Belief is a verb, something that you do. Then the truth is that authentic, saving belief must be also? The very real, every day action of trusting.

Then a true saving faith is a faith that gives thanks, a faith that sees God, a faith that deeply trusts?

I read in the Amplified Bible on an afternoon while young hands work scales up and down the piano keys, "Jesus replied, 'This is the work (service) that God asks of you: that you believe in the One Whom He has sent [that you cleave to, trust, rely on, and have faith in His Messenger] (John 6:26). That's my daily work, the work God asks of me? To Trust. The work I shirk. To trust in the Son, to trust in the wisdom of this moment, to trust in now. And trust is that: work. The work of trusting love. Intentional and focused. Sometimes, too often, I don't want to muster the energy. Stress and anxiety seem easier. Easier to let a mind run wild with the worry than to exercise discipline, to reign her in, slip the blinders on and train her to walk steady in certain assurance, not spooked by the spectors looming ahead. Are stress and worry evidences of a soul too lazy, too undisciplined, to keep gaze fixed on God? To stay in love? I don't like to ask these questions, sweep out these corners where eyes glare from shadows. But this I must ask and I do, out loud, to the C-scale being played with certainty: Isn't joy worth the effort to trust?

Because I kid no one: stress brings no joy.

Isaiah 9:2

The people walking in darkness have seen a great light;

On those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned.

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