A season of giving is about to be ushered in as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ, our Immanuel, our "God with us". We've been thinking a lot about giving and gifts in the Velvet Lime Girls studio. Quite often, the most memorable and treasured gifts are the ones given fully from the heart. Gifts like the one Mary Magdalene gave Jesus, a pint of pure nard in an alabaster jar. Nard was an expensive, lavish, aromatic perfume and many scholars believe this may have actually been an essence of lavender. The Bible records it would have taken a year's salary to pay for the amount of precious ointment given by Mary to Jesus. It was an extravagant gift, poured straight from her heart, filling the senses of all those present, and continuing to touch people today, whenever the story is retold. We've wondered if this gift came from a field of lavender as vast, as beautiful, as costly as the one pictured here, a never-ending field of fragrance. The heady aroma from this lavender field seems to waft off the paper and into our hearts, reminding us of just how beautiful a gift is when it is given from the heart.
We'd like to thank James, our "Platinum Advisor", for bringing this inspiration to us. He picked up his crayons again after 40+ years, and with soft pastels created this fragrant work of art, and we've just been inhaling the inspiration it brings to our souls. The artwork sits on an easel in our studio, it is a work still in progress, but we wanted to share its fragrance, it's reminder to all of us in this season.. that gifts given from the heart last forever.
"Then Mary took about a pint of nard, an expensive perfume; she poured it on Jesus' feet and wiped His feet with her hair. And the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume." John 12:3
Learning to give from our hearts,
The Velvet Lime Girls
