Dear friend,

In 2018 my whole life seemed to flip upside down.

After living my whole life from 4 years old and up in Africa, our family was moving back to the USA. It seemed like a process for us to admit that's the direction the Lord was moving us.

But then it finally happened. I remember a lot of it that I don't love to remember. So many good byes. So many tears. So many times I looked outside and my whole chest felt a pang of realizing I'd never see this town, this country, probably not even this continent again.

There were so many moments and memories and familiarities and hardships wrapped up in my life in Africa. I'm not really here to tell you about that today, though. The main point is that the entire world I knew and was used to completely and rather permanently changed.

Twenty years ago this month, my family moved to Africa. Eight years ago this summer we moved back to the U.S.

I'd love to tell you that our family adjusted well and quickly, but honestly we didn't. We made the best of it and we leaned on the Lord, but honestly we all struggled in our own ways. Maybe someday I'll write a book about our life in Africa and the joys and sorrows and trials and the aspects of what it was like to return to the US after such a long time, but not today.

Even if you can't relate to the specifics of this situation I'm describing, I'm sure you can relate to grief, loss, saying goodbyes, and change.

When I went to college in fall of 2021, I wasn't okay yet from the move back to the USA. I was trying to figure out how to be an adult and work a job and take college classes, while also trying to figure out what a young adult girl was supposed to wear in America, how to make friends and talk with people in America, and how to be okay with the goodbyes I had said.

I also had to adjust to being away from my family, the one thing that had been constant in my life. My safe people, my shared experience people were all of a sudden 6 hours away.

It was hard. I'm thankful for it because it forced me to rely on the Lord. It forced me to get consistent in reading my bible every day, and it forced me to run to the Lord with my emotions when they were too heavy (which was pretty much everyday).

But I found the things I was dealing with and the emotions I was having shaped the way I thought. It was easy to think I was completely alone. It was easy to think no one understood me. It was easy to think I needed to toughen up and move on.

And as I read my bible each day, I saw more and more times how many of the things I thought from my emotions, weren't really true. I wasn't alone, the Lord is with me, my bible said. I wasn't unloved or neglected, the Lord's love was unfailing and unending, I read each day.

And the words in Scripture spoke to my heart. They filled me with truth that was hard to remember sometimes. But I didn't want to forget.

So, the early morning as the sun just began to greet the day, after sitting on my stiff college mattress in my dorm room reading my bible, I would take my pen and write on the bottom of my foot one of the verses I had read. Many were from the Psalms about the love and faithfulness of the Lord.

I don't know if you've written on your skin since childhood, but you have to go slow and deliberately form each letter. It looked crooked and wriggly, the little black letters smudging on the bottom of my foot.

Then I'd hobble around my room, getting dressed, gathering my notebooks for class (because I still liked taking physical notes even though my classmates mostly used computers or ipads). I slipped my socks gingerly onto my feet and then stepped into my shoes.

Every time I looked at my foot, I made myself remember the verse I had written there. I made myself take my eyes off of the stress of assignments and the loneliness of being away from home and look to the Lord. I made myself remember His faithfulness, His love, His strength, His omnipotence, His tenderness.

And I found a peace in taking my eyes off my problems and looking to the Lord that I never found in all the music and all the sleep and all the distraction and all the visits home and all the time with friends or anything else.

Because when all those things are taken away, the Lord still remains. In the depths of the night, in the hight of emotion, in the end of all the world.... He remains. His love unchanging, His greatness still overwhelming, His care for my soul just as intimate.

Later, as I began to create art more and more and more, I realized that maybe I could create art to serve as that "verse on the bottom of the foot" for other people.

Maybe instead of writing on the bottom of people's feet, I can paint things that will remind people of truth--of things that emotions often make us forget. Things that are essential for living a joy-filled life, no matter how dark the trials we've walked through. Things like who the Lord is.

So I started a monthly print club. Each month I pick a verse that has either encouraged me or reminded me of who the Lord is, and I illustrate it. I create some type of visual reminder of the verse, and then I handwrite a letter of encouragement, the things it made me think of, and the truths that stood out to me in the verse. And then I mail them off to people all across the country.

Because, still, no matter how easy or hard the season I'm in is, I always need reminders of who the Lord is and how Great He is. There's too many things that try to distract us from that. So I created something to remind myself (and you) every single month of truth to serve as a tool to help us shine bright for the Lord even when it's hard. Because it is hard. But He is worth it.

If you want to read more about The Starlight Print Club, you can check it out (or sign up) by clicking HERE. New member signups close on the 20th.

What's one way you've seen the Lord's faithfulness in your life?? Reply to this email to let me know!

~Isabel Grace

P.S. A huge huge thank you to the two wonderful people who purchased an original painting from me this last week. I'm so thankful you chose to bring my artwork into your homes. I hope the paintings remind you of the goodness of the Lord.

If you want to stalk what paintings and prints I have available, you can check them out HERE.