Wait For It

The women at Camp Morrow scurried towards the Chapel building at 8:45 a.m. It was a crisp and clear morning, 23 degrees. Acorns, pine needles, and dry leaves littered the ground. The oak and maple trees were nearly bare. We had been summoned by the camp bell all weekend for meals and Chapel time. The large room bowed in a curtsy to invite us in for the final session of the ladies’ retreat.

The chairs were arranged in an arc facing the stage area. Against the back and side walls are upholstered benches, maybe pews from an old church. The room has bare necessities: a piano, projection screen, and a small portable stage. In the front row, I sat next to Francie, the morning’s speaker. A painter’s easel and supplies were directly in front of us. The ladies settled in and we began. We prayed, stood, sang, and sat.

Francie popped up to the front and grabbed the microphone. She was dressed in pumpkin-covered overalls with a dark blue long-sleeve sweater. A green sash is tied in a small bow center left in her curly dark brown hair. Since Friday night she has befriended nearly every woman in the audience with her “I love you” self. She began her talk and a photo of her at the age of six running across a field was on the screen.

I know her story by heart—her Hallmark-worthy family lived in Havre, Montana. Forrest, her husband, took his first post-college job as a college professor, and Francie was a stay-at-home mom. They lived in a teeny starter home in town with their ten-month-old baby, Solomon. One January day when Francie was nursing the baby, she felt a lump in her breast. Disbelief, denial, distress, and a doctor visit followed. Francie’s mom, Bean, came from Big Fork, Montana, and was on the scene when the OBGYN doctor made a house call to deliver the unhappy news.

In those first wobbly days following the diagnosis, Bean saw a vision. It was a snapshot of the Towne family. From behind, there were two adults, two kids following on foot, and one in a backpack carrier.

Family pictures change on the big screen as Francie tells her story. We heard about the triple negative test; the BRACAII gene; the double mastectomy, and reconstruction. Bean had early-stage ovarian cancer and a hysterectomy. Mother and daughter did chemotherapy concurrently. A photo on the screen shows two bald women smiling sweetly in a restaurant celebrating the end of chemo.

In the Camp Morrow Chapel, the women’s faces reflect trauma and knowing as they continue to listen. Francie talked of how she and Forrest hoped for a family with multiple children, but their dreams were dashed by the disease that devastated the reproductive system. But God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Eph 3:20)

As the clock of life time clicked forward, the Towne family watched God work. They went forward with two open adoptions. River Allen and Mary Birdie, five years apart, became part of their family. A photograph on the screen shows the whole suntanned clan: Forrest, Francie, Solomon, two birth moms, and two adopted children. The last slide in Francie’s talk is of their family of five hiking in Glacier National Park. Bean’s vision in real-time—two parents, two kids on foot, and one in the carrier—has been realized. Here is the jaw-dropping message:

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. (Deut 29:29)

Francie took a seat, and Kristine Peterson*, wearing her bespeckled artist smock, gave her a long embrace. She kissed Francie on the cheek and turned to address the empty canvas wiping her face as the tears persisted. Sniffles popcorned through the audience. The woman seated at the piano played softly. Lyrics appeared on the screen and we were invited to sing.

The scrape of the brush against canvas was a stark contrast to the soft glow of women’s voices and the gentle tone of the piano. Dark blue and green swaths mark the upper left corner of the canvas where a child might draw a rainbow smiling over creation. The sound of bristles dragging on the canvas is palpable, the scratch of a cat’s tongue on dry skin. A mirror image bow appears on the right top of the canvas. It was the dark night of the soul.

Kristine had a cadence to her painting. Two or three dabs of paint and a blending swish in the middle of the palette. In a fluid motion, paint meets canvas. Red marks begin to frame a circle here and then there, and then here and there. She returns to the circles again and again until they appear as two open red roses.

She circled the brush in the water jar, wiped it dry on the paper towel scrunched in her left hand, and collected paint. Blue and green filled the white space with no apparent rhyme or reason. Another brush was selected and she built a frame of some sort in the middle—no it was a body, tapering to legs and arms—a body seated. Brown, black, red, tan, and orange were tapped, mixed, and applied until a seated person with shoulder-length hair and a head tipped toward the knees was clear.

Brown hues on white come to create hands very carefully. It was more intricate and deliberate work. The fingers were formed one by one. Together they become two hands cupped to support the seated figure. Then we saw it —two large red roses, in the dark and stormy background. We imagined ourselves as the one held in the hands of Jesus. Safe. Secure. Held.

Kristine backed away from her work and sat next to Francie. The worship song was coming to an end… And then Kristine returned to the easel. She added red suggestions to the wrists where nail marks may have been. She added three more small rose buds balancing the elements in the painting to a pleasing perfection. The piano player concluded the song.

God’s work was illustrated here. He knows the end from the beginning and we only see a glimpse. Sometimes it is harsh, the big brush scraping on the canvas in dark displays of color. His work is dabs and gentle strokes filling in details. He is the Creator and we are his canvas, designed to reflect His glory. Forrest and Francie thought their child-rearing years were done with one dear boy, but God had other plans. Kristine was almost done painting and thought to add three rose buds. Perhaps it was a coincidence that she added three rose buds. I don’t believe in coincidence, and I bet you don’t either. We are safe and secure in the Hands of Jesus.

*Kristine Peterson studied art in Riga, Latvia. She loves to paint a story that speaks from the heart during worship services. She lives with her husband, Dustin, in Wamic, Oregon. You can find her on Instagram @Kristine.Peterson.Art