The Spider Queen

I woke up the morning of 5-6-14 (a Tuesday) at about 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. with an idea for a character. I can’t remember if I dreamed her, or if the idea was just there when I woke up. Either way, I went back to sleep. That morning, after I got out of bed, I proceeded to attempt to paint the idea using a digital painting studio. The original ideas I had were that of a female alien type character, probably a hero, with a dark gray helmet on, that had two antenna-like things protruding from it. She also had two swords, the blades of which were made of a translucent green material.

As the design progressed, the character became much different than what I had intended. She was now a villain, half woman half spider, and she now had black armor. The antenna were removed in favor of a more spider like design, and the translucent green swords were swapped for a pole-arm with a translucent blade on each end, both facing opposite directions, as well as some similar green gems on her armor. The light source hits the gems and blades and refracts the light, causing illumination around the bottom of them (the opposite side to where the light enters, as per light refractions physics that I had learned a short time prior to this painting); this causes them to look like they are glowing. In total this character design took about 8 days to complete.

On Thursday (5-8-14), the second day of working on her, I was having trouble with the design, and because it was taking so much time, I began to wonder if I was wasting that time. This, along with the frustration of repeatedly getting stuck in the design process led me to feel very useless. I was wondering if my whole endeavor of wanting to make a Christian based action adventure story (my Champions Light series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htkEySabaeg&list=PLwXrLjpeXuQoFhP5r3Yeaj_QUH7C2M-Uw) was even worth the time I’ve spent. I also wondered if I should maybe rethink my future in terms of work direction. I prayed about it; I asked God to let me know if I was doing the right thing, and I went on trying to design my character. That night, I showed this painting to my dad. After looking at it for a few minutes, he hopped up and went to grab his camera. He showed me a picture he had taken that day of a spider, with glowing green eyes. The glow was from light refracting off of the eyes, which was done by the sun, not by the camera flash. He saw the glow before he took the picture. I didn’t even recognize this as a confirmation from God until that night in bed, when it suddenly hit me, at which point I promptly thanked God. So the very day I prayed for God to confirm or deny my choice of work, while I was working on a SPIDER lady with LIGHT REFRACTING GLOWING GREEN gems and blades, He sent my dad a SPIDER with LIGHT REFRACTING GLOWING GREEN eyes. The very same day.

The message isn’t that I am great, or that my work is God ordained (although I believe the latter to be true), but the message is that the God that I serve, loves you as much as He loves me, and He is eager to work in your life. Jesus said in John 14:21 that those who hear His Words and do them, they are the ones that love God, and Jesus promised that He will manifest Himself to them. God is not an idea; God is not a man-made concept in order to keep you in line; God is not inactive, and He is not some invisible space cop just waiting for you to mess up, so that He can bust you. He is your Heavenly Father. He sent His Son to die in your place so that you can live your life for Him. I am here to testify that the work that God calls each individual to do is not only what He has empowered you to do with the talents that He gave you, but He even cares enough to send special, personalized messages to you, for encouragement, for inspiration, and even for rebuke (these are generally warnings, not finger wagging). If you use your talents to glorify God, God will not only increase your abilities, but He will also bless your steps. Proverbs 16:9 “A man's heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps."