Lifeline, Jonah

This is a visual meditation on the life of Jonah—a prophet with whom I easily identify. Here we see Jonah in three telling phases of his struggle with God: being thrown overboard into the sea, repenting from inside the belly of the fish and enjoying the shade of a plant that God would soon use as a teaching tool. The keys and the flower are objects which God used to speak to me while I painted this piece and so I attached them as objects of grace. Later my pastor used this painting to illustrate a sermon saying that every man can presently see himself in one of these three attitudes of Jonah and elaborated from that point. I really appreciated his insights and the affirmation he afforded me.