Prophetic painting by a Nana...

     Do you know how something can be right in front of your eyes, day after day, and yet you just don't see it? There is a picture hanging on the wall downstairs in our house. It is in a darkened hallway that goes from our family room into a bedroom. It's been there since my husband brought it home from his Nana's house in Cleburne, Texas five years ago. It hangs in the hall right outside our office and I must have passed it hundreds of times as I've gone from here to there, and yet...I never really saw it.
     It was painted by Paul's Nana in Oklahoma City in 1976 (the year we were married) and is inscribed to him on the back, "Love Nana."  She kept it with her from the time she painted it until Paul brought it to our home in California five years ago.
     After a terrible tragedy, Paul's Nana gave up her life and walked, without hesitation into the shattered world of two teenage boys, one adolescent boy, and a five year-old baby girl. She prayed, she trusted God, and she walked in faith.
     Nana died in December at age 98.
     Paul and I were laughing and telling stories about Nana for weeks after her funeral, then one night when we got into bed, Paul said to me, "I've been thinking about that picture Nana painted for me. I think it was Prophetic."
     "Which one?" I asked him. "I thought about the Rose painting in the upstairs bedroom and the "Rare Bird" album cover that Nana painted for his brother Charles. I had recently put that one in a closet and was suddenly feeling bad about it. "My painting," he answered, "the one in the hall. The one of the Road."
     "There's a painting of Nana's in the hall of a road?" I asked.
     "Yes. Over the King chair, outside the office."  Was he crazy? I wondered
      I went downstairs in the morning before we rushed out the door and there it was.   Oh yeah, I thought, I knew that was here. Didn't I?
 

     I thought about the painting off and on for days. I thought about what Paul said. I thought about the path that Paul and my life had taken since Nana had painted it. I thought about our journey, and then it hit me. Our "Glory Road," I thought. How could I have missed this. Yet somehow, in the midst of a busy life, I did.
     Here's one of the "many" road pictures I've taken in the last few years.
     Now don't you miss what is right in front of you.
     I'm going to paint this one, frame it just like Nana's, and hang them side by side.
     I know that you and Jesus are smiling right now, aren't you Nana? I know you are.