Make Your Face Shine Image License (Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19)
Make Your Face Shine Image License (Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19)
DIGITAL DOWNLOAD FOR ONE-TIME LICENSE
Interested in licensing a single image for worship or ministry use? This one-time license grants you permission to use this image for ministry purposes. Print the image as bulletin cover art or project the art and engage with it during worship, Sunday School, or Youth Group. We hope you might use our images as tools for spiritual formation.
If you are interested in an art print of this piece, please visit our print shop.
Make Your Face Shine
Acrylic painting on canvas with digital drawing
By Lisle Gwynn Garrity
Inspired by Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
From our “How does a weary world rejoice?” Advent 2023 collection.
Order includes:
high-res image file formatted for print
high-res image file formatted for web/projection
A PDF of the Artist's statements & scripture reference for the visual
A visio divina Bible Study Guide for you to use this image in a group study session that incorporates the ancient Benedictine spiritual practice of "divine seeing."
Credit Info:
When printing and sharing online, please always include the following credits:
Artist's name | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org
FROM THE ARTIST:
For this Advent series, I created a collection of paintings inspired by the Hubble telescope images of the cosmos. The telescope renderings invite you to peer into worlds unknown. The beauty of it all is a balm for the weary. When you gaze upon the colors of the cosmos, how can you keep from rejoicing? Inspired by the luminescent textures of nebula and star clusters, I painted washes of vibrant colors and metallic gold amidst a backdrop of beautiful blackness. These paintings have become the backgrounds for each of my digital drawings in this series.
The day I began working on this image, another mass shooting terrorized our country. This time it happened at a church preschool. One of the children slain was the pastor’s daughter. By the time you read this, there will have been more shootings, more unnecessary and completely preventable deaths. The weight of that prediction makes every bone in my body weary beyond repair.
As I read and reread Psalm 80 on that day of mourning, I remembered that politeness is not the language of the weary. The psalmist supplied me with the words I wanted to pray, the words I wanted to scream: Wake up your power, God! Save us! How long?!
Then, I began to draw. What emerged was a face shining from the cosmos. I imagined God as Holy Mother or Holy Parent weeping for her creation. I imagined the parents weeping for their children who were so suddenly and brutally taken from them. The mere thought of their grief knocks the wind out of me.
As I completed the image, I added a flock of doves flying out from the void into which God’s tears fall. The doves represent the Spirit let loose in our world, flapping their wings into every desperate corner. I added them not as a statement, but as a plea: please, God, make your face shine so we might be saved.
—Lisle Gwynn Garrity
On March 27, 2023, a shooter took the lives of 3 children and 3 adults at The Covenant School in Nashville, TN.
