Friendship with God 3

Back in 2021 I exhibited three paintings in a local exhibition, on the theme of Friendship with God. This is the third post in a series of three, highlighting these paintings.

The third paintings is ‘The Hand of Friendship’ and is of Jesus’ wounded hand reaching out to us. You may have noticed that all three paintings have a bright yellow background. When I painted the wounded hand, it didn’t look quite right until I added in the blue circle. The blue is also used in the first painting as the sea, so this helps to tie the series together (as do the black silhouettes of the other two paintings).

The idea of the hand of friendship came from a time on retreat when I was praying with Psalm 139 (v10 your right hand will hold me.) I painted Jesus’ wounded hand as a way of identifying it, but the wound also speaks to us of his love. We can sometimes mistakenly think that we need to beg or plead for God to notice us, but it is the opposite. God is always holding out a hand to us - a hand of love, a hand of friendship, a hand of help. All we need to do is to notice and take hold of his hand and follow him.