Jesus walked by the Sea of Galilee, went up the mountain, and sat down there. Great crowds came to Him, bringing the lame, the blind, the deformed, the mute, and many others. They placed them at His feet, and He healed them. -Matthew 15:29-30

“I picture this moment—people bringing all that is broken, all that hurts, and laying it at the feet of the One who heals. There, in the quiet presence of Christ, healing happens—not through force, but through the gentle outpouring of love.

This isn’t just a story from long ago; it’s a living invitation. What if we, too, could bring everything that torments us—our fears, pain, and confusion—and simply place it in the presence of Love itself? What if we could let go, trusting in the sacred presence that holds us and heals us?

Today, may we pause, breathe, and receive the gift of God’s peace.” —Adam Bucko

My country’s skies are bluer than the ocean,
And sunlight beams on cloverleaf and pine.
But other lands have sunlight too and clover,
And skies are everywhere as blue as mine.
Oh, hear my song, O God of all the nations,
A song of peace for their land and for mine.

Welcome to Day 22 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder Peace.

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WOW Tree of Life painting update: two steps forward, one step back. My new-to-me overhead projector is not working quite the way I had hoped to transfer the 40 elements to the canvas. Time to shift into problem-solving mode. To be continued… 🙂

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To download the black and white image for personal use: on a computer, click and drag the image to your desktop; on a phone, press on the picture until it gives you the option to save it to your photos. The image is formatted to fit on an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper, but feel free to print it whatever size you’d like.

Background: I created a series of forty 5″x7″ watercolor paintings inspired by the elements of worship. It was work commissioned by a project with Nourishing Vocation with Children at St. Olaf College, a program funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative.

As the paintings are shared, you may notice a pattern:

• Music = Songbird
• Prayer = Seed and/or Fruit
• Word = Leaf
• Order of Service = Element of Nature
• Season = Insect with a Flower

One final creative invitation for this project remains for me: to paint a Tree of Life holding all forty elements. I plan to share its progress here.

For this series, I am grateful to have used handmade paper from White Dragon Paper and watercolor paints from Natural Earth Paint.