ONE AND ONLY LOVE
Daniel was a successful artist whose paintings sold for exceptional prices; however, personally, he was an angry, very difficult man who had, over time, almost become intolerable to everyone in his world. Because they felt such disdain for him though, no one had guessed or even suspected that Daniel was totally aware of how objectionable he was to everyone around him and that it grieved him; they had no idea of how he daily relived the memories and bitterness breaking down and slowly destroying his soul.
Finally, even though Daniel had professed to giving up on any kind of God he did give in to the wisdom of his beloved, old teacher and his own exhausted, sagging hope for living and began preparing a place in the studio to begin the three paintings that he was told would free him from the hell his daily, inner life had become.
The paintings were completed: The first one was a portrait of a woman, the love of his life and the second was of his once deeply trusted best friend; the man and woman who had broken his heart by their shameless infidelity to him and ironically made him a world-famous painter of art that seemed, literally, to bleed with pain from the canvases. The third painting was of the Christ and was twice the size of the other two and the canvases of all three figures did indeed seem to be bleeding.
Even though Daniel had no thoughts of God, he went, as directed, every day into the small private place in the studio, sat before the portraits and prayed to Christ to help him pray earnestly for those people, the destroyers of his soul; pray that they have a beautiful life with all the blessings that God can bestow.
In the middle of the second week of Daniel’s daily ritual, he was feeling something powerful moving in him. He hadn’t wanted to acknowledge it but it was true, he could feel it and as he sat there before the paintings acknowledging what he felt, he was suddenly shocked to notice that the paintings were changed, the bleeding had stopped “The paintings are changed” he gasped.
Daniel kept praying every day, twice a day, and more with zeal; even praying between visits to the paintings. Every time he studied the portraits they were more radiant, they were physically changed and he could see into the past by their light, he saw more and more and felt more and more of the love for his beloved friends and his precious savior he had known as a child and a young man. Daniel was, consciously, reunited with the love of God, the only love there is.
Jack