My newest Painting - Oct. 2009

This is my latest painting. The photo is not professional with the colors not exact and the photo cut off at the bottom but I just had to share.
The original is already sold but giclee prints will be available.



"Born in His Heart & Wrapped in His Arms"
As I was praying and asking God to give me a painting that would portray His heart about adoption and orphans, I started to see this painting come together in my mind. The more I pondered upon it the more I couldn't wait to get it sketched out and my brush into paint.
The painting is full of symbolism. The colors in the painting's background are bright and cheerful and cover the spectrum of the rainbow therefore illustrating the promises of God to the "least of these". If you look closely enough, you can see a map of the world in the background.
I added the adoptive parents in here because they are being the physical hands of God in this world by offering God's love to the child. The children represent various ethnic groups as well as babies, toddlers, older children and sibling groups. There are 14 children in here for a purpose. Fourteen in biblical interpretations symbolizes recreation, and spiritual perfection. Adoption recreates a family by other means than through birth. Spiritual perfection is demostrated on earth through adoption and gives us a picture of God's adoption of us all when the perfect gift was given to allow it. Everyone, including the adoptive parents, is engulfed in the heart of God. The dove implies that God is well pleased with those who look after His little children. The feather hidden in the heart, upper left is a reminder that we are in the shadow of His wings.
You could interpret that the arms wrapped around everyone are representative of the adoptive parents but in my mind they are not. They are in fact, the arms of God. The character traits of God as Father, Protector, Defender and Provider are represented by the masculine arm of God and the character traits of God as Mother, Caregiver, Nurturer and Healer are represented by the Feminine arm of God. They are entertwined, representing His complete perfection to be all these things.
-Melissa Carter