When the Waves Roar: Storm, Smallness, and the Lord of the Sea

This summer, I gave myself permission to work hard at something I usually neglect: resting.

For months I had felt caught in the undertow of marketing — the constant demand to be visible, always present online, always striving. It was eroding the joy of my practice, until I began to wonder if I should just stop altogether, let the paintings linger unshared in my house, uncelebrated.

Instead, I slowed. I scheduled lightly, and then I stepped away. I read novels for pleasure (I’m currently deep into a reread of The Wheel of Time). I spent unhurried time with my kids. I let myself paint, not for marketing, not for output, but because the act itself renews me.

And in that small sabbath of sorts, I found myself returning to why I create art at all.

The Slow Work of Light

My new series, Daylight, has been slowly taking form in this space of rest. It is a meditation on how light moves across the landscape — sometimes gentle, sometimes fractured, sometimes blazing — and how that light becomes a metaphor for eternal truths of life, death, and resurrection.

The palette itself feels luminous and purposeful: isolindolene yellow, quinacridone pink, cobalt teal, neutral tint, lavender, and shimmering threads of iridescent gold and interference blue. Each choice carries the weight of symbol, holding light against shadow.

The titles, too, are steeped in meaning: After the Storm, Dawn Comes Dreaming, Golden Soul, Eden, Fracture, Ghosts, Resurgam. Each one gestures toward resurrection hope in its own way.

In painting again, I have remembered what resurrection looks like in practice: how life returns where burnout once hollowed things out, how inspiration stirs again when space is given. This is why I believe art has the power to embody resurrection hope — not only on the canvas but in the life of the one who makes it.

When the Waves Roar

Last week, a hurricane churned offshore. Here in Rhode Island, the weather was mostly mild, but I felt the need to see the waves. At Beavertail, the ocean was in full voice: waves leaping, thundering, roaring against rock.

I wrote afterwards:

The waters are dangerous today, but also glorious, majestic in their power. You are small here. Your problems are smaller. Salt on your skin, wind in your hair. The thunder of the waves drowns out the thoughts in your mind. The sunlight dances over the water.

Standing there, I was reminded of how Scripture often speaks of the sea — as both threat and theater for God’s power.

“The floods have lifted up, O Lord, the floods have lifted up their voice; the floods lift up their roaring. Mightier than the thunders of many waters, the Lord on high is mighty” (Psalm 93:3–4).

The ocean’s roar reframed my own exhaustion. In that moment, I was not the center; He was. My marketing worries, my need for constant presence, even my creative striving — all were small before the waves and the God who commands them.

Resurrection in the Ordinary

Soon after, our family drove to Pennsylvania for a wedding. If the storm reminded me of God’s grandeur, the wedding reminded me of His tenderness. Around tables of food and laughter, I was enfolded again into family — conversations flowing, joy shared, new bonds welcomed.

These moments, too, belong to resurrection hope: not only light breaking after storm, but joy flowering in the everyday.

And so the series continues. Daylight is not only about the sun breaking across the horizon. It is about the truth that light always returns, because Christ Himself has risen. This is the hope that anchors the collection, and the rhythm I want to keep in my work. Not frantic visibility, not endless striving, but a steady unveiling of light.

Stepping into Daylight

This season, I’m preparing to share glimpses of Daylight slowly, piece by piece, as the series takes shape. Originals will be available for collectors, with smaller works and hand-finished prints for those who want to live with the palette of resurrection in their homes.

It will not be a loud release, but a quiet unveiling — a sustainable rhythm, a sabbath pace.

And in the meantime, I keep painting. I keep resting. I keep watching the waves, remembering that the One who stills the seas is also the Lord who brings light at dawn.

Which piece of light speaks to you most?