This was such a joy to paint. Took about 3 hours, from start to finish. I mostly used my fingers to paint. The strokes were effortless and I felt free painting this. I thought of naming this freedom but chose to stick to the original theme -Joy. The painting is inspired by the Scripture "the Joy of the Lord is my strength".

I remember the Scripture from childhood- saw it written in a painting in my aunt's house with a horse painted above it. So I always related this scripture to horses. While I've known this scripture for a long time, I didn't realize I was completely unaware of where exactly it was in the Bible. So after getting the painting done on October 10th, 2017, I went through my Bible and found it in Nehemiah 8:10. I'm no bible expert so it took me a while to understand the whole context. After about 15 minutes of going back and forth, I was surprised to find out that Nehemiah spoke those words on October 09, several thousand years ago. I made the decision to paint it on October 09(not knowing anything about the actual event) and finished it on October 10th. I was blown away by the coincidence. Maybe it wasn't a coincidence.

The Joy of the Lord is indeed our strength. Why the joy? Nehemiah goes on to say "and to celebrate with great joy because they had heard God’s words and understood them." The joy of the Lord is our strength because we have heard the good news and understand what Christ has done.

"the Joy of the Lord is my strength". Nehemiah 8:10