A Parting Gift

How Artmaking helped me pray through a sad season

I made a parting gift for my father’s 86th birthday, as he was battling cancer. It was a book filled with bible verses of hope and encouragement for old age.

I traveled to Japan and came back home after spending two weeks with him. Although he was bedridden and in some discomfort, he was still clear in his mind, and shared many important words with me as he remembered many things from his life. He loved Jesus and we prayed and sang worship songs together every day I was with him.

Last year we had heard from the doctor that he had a few months left to live, just out of the blue. My father had been active and well, riding his bicycle, climbing mountains, receiving invitations to speak in different places. He was 85. We thought he would go strong for at least another decade.

I think we all want the best of our hopes and desires to be true and when it comes to the life of a loved one, and obviously when we consider our own health. It’s so hard to accept a doctor’s report that says our days are numbered. We instinctively pray that we will not die but live, which is a normal response. It’s the right thing to do, to pray for healing and life.

I believe in the Bible, which describes God as a healer. And Jesus went around healing everyone who came to him. We pray for healing because it’s in God’s word.

I think my father felt that he would be healed, and went on with normal life showing no signs of worry or fear, as long as he could. I think he had peace - and if he was in pain or troubled in his heart, he never showed it. He was grateful for every day he was alive and wanted to make sure my mother would not be in sorrow.

We all prayed that he would live a long life and overcome even the doctor’s prognosis. For a while we thought our prayers were answered.

I prayed a lot. And by praying I mean I sought the Lord. I couldn’t really pray in words. I just couldn’t bring myself to say things to God that might sound foolish or ignorant. So this is what I did.

All I did was paint, cut, color, and paste. I worked frantically on my gift for him. I found scriptures that expressed hope. I wrote them out, I typed them, cut and pasted, physically, with knife, with scissors and glue.

While I was working I directed my heart to God. It was how I prayed. My hands were moving, my heart was seeking God. My eyes focused on scriptures of comfort but with my mouth I wasn’t saying any words. My mind was praying but not in any language. I don’t know how else to describe this, but I was praying with my hands.

I think it’s sometimes impossible (and maybe not even necessary) to pray with words. The Holy Spirit knows what we ought to pray and how we ought to pray as we ought. He prays through us, even in our groaning, as it says in Romans 8:27 -

And he that searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

My art project turned out to be a form of therapy, calming my soul and giving me hope and encouragement, which I was then able to pass on to my father. When he took the gift in his hands and found joy in the scriptures in the book I was so grateful that God had given me the inspiration and ability to create something beautiful for him.

I documented the process which took several months, which you can see in this video here:

A few days after I returned home from visiting him my father passed away. By God’s grace it was a mercifully brief spell of suffering in the last stage of the illness. We didn’t want to see him go through prolonged pain, and he went in peace at the end.

May God bless you on your journey, in every season, even the sad ones.

Remember, God will never leave you nor forsake you.