Fine Art Inspirational Greeting Card Collection Illustrated by Suzanne Davis Harden

Each Card Has Spiritual Significance

This Beautiful Boxed Collection of Fine Art Greetings contains ten encouraging greeting cards of six original designs.  

There are four illustrations of a little girl with Jesus in various places by the sea, holding His hand and looking steadily at His face, but always with one of her hands behind her back.

 

There is one painting of Christ praying,

and one pen and ink illustration of an angel writing in the Book of Life. 

These six designs complete the set in the collection.

Spiritual Metaphorical Imagery

The paintings of the little girl with Jesus were originally inspired from a series of dreams back in the summer of 2009. 

They each have a special spiritual significance. 

For through them the Lord revealed that the little child in the paintings was a visual metaphor representing comforting spiritual realities about Christ and His people.

The Lord would use these paintings often to encourage me along with the scriptures that accompanied them on the cards. 

These Inspirational Greetings are not simply a collection of encouraging cards but taken as a whole set, they have very special meaning for Christ’s sheep everywhere.

What The Paintings Teach Us

Abiding In Christ When All Is Well. 

  • (The card that represents the child holding Christ’s hand walking with Him as her Good Shepherd, Friend, and Guide along the shoreline. The waters are peaceful.
  • The child gazes steadily into Christ’s face and He at her. 
  • The skies are blue and there is nothing but peace and calm about this painting. 
  • There are no obstacles to hinder their progress on their journey to the lighthouse in the distance. 
  • What is that lighthouse? 
  • It represents Truth, righteousness, God’s Word. 
  • As the child abides in Christ, her Good shepherd, He feeds her on His truth, His word. 
  • They progress steadily onward toward that goal, His promised land, His promises in His word. 
  • All is well. No enemies, no challenges, no storms in sight. 
  • All is pure joy and health and peace. 

Abiding in Christ Through The Storms and Challenges

  •  (The card that represents Christ and the child on the dark, stormy sea together. 
  • He holds her hand and smiles peacefully down into her eyes to let her know all will be well as they walk on the water by faith together. 
  • He is a sure rock of stability. 
  • He holds her firmly despite the strong wind and the cold water beneath her bare feet. 
  • She can only give Him one hand throughout this trial, but He does not condemn her for what appears to be her small faith; for He knows her heart. He loves her and accepts what His precious child can give Him. 
  • He does not force her to give Him what she cannot give in this dark place. He cherishes her and accepts her right where she is in her walk with Him spiritually. 

Focusing on Christ  

  • This is represented by the card where the child gazes up into Her Good Shepherd’s eyes and clings to His hand —with her one hand to be sure, but she is clinging with all her might. 

  • That one hand symbolizes many things. I look at it sometimes and see a child who has not got the strength of a two handed person, perhaps does not believe she has much faith to live up to Christ’s vision of her, and therefore what He asked her to do for Him. 

  • She may feel crippled in some way, the image is that of a child who feels like half of a whole person somehow. 
  • But Christ keeps gazing steadily at her and whispering to her heart, “I made you whole...I died for thee, forgave thy sins, and gave you peace, and made you ever one with Me. By My stripes you were healed and with My Spirit you are sealed. Sealed forever as My child, you forever will be Mine. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

  • And it is very important that the child keep focusing her gaze on Christ, keep listening intently to what her Lord and Savior is telling her and that she keep her hand in Christ’s ~even if it’s just that one hand. 

  • For in her mind, she actually has no other~ the Lord Jesus must heal what has been broken as she gazes steadily up at Him and listens to His Words and not to what anyone else would tell her. 

  • God’s word promises~ “ He sent His Word and healed them and delivered them out of their destructions...” Psalm 107:20

  • This encouraging greeting card is appropriately called, “Jesus’ Gaze.”

Abiding In Christ And Committing To Honor Him Through Obedience No Matter What The Cost:

 

  • (This is represented by the card that shows Jesus and the child by what I call the Mercy River Shores. 
  • The child gazes soberly into Christ’s eyes as He looks seriously back at her. Beyond them there is a lovely lighthouse. But the path to that place of rest is strewn with sharp, jagged rocks and the child is barefooted. 
  • The sea looks like it could erupt any moment into a storm of waves that could overwhelm her. 
  • The sky though calm and pretty now, somehow looms overhead. The sand looks like it might shift any moment. 
  • Jesus looks into her eyes; His gaze and His firm grip on her hand and His firm stance in the sliding sand are the only immoveable looking things about this painting. 
  • The lighthouse seems solid. But to get there will cost a lot of suffering to cross over the dagger like rocky path. Remember we said the lighthouse is a metaphor for truth, for righteousness, for all of God’s promises; it also now may symbolize whatever the work Christ calls one to do for His glory, and also it can be a metaphor for  Christ Himself who is our Portion, our Promised Place of Rest. 
  • But look! He says He will not leave us alone while we embark on our journey to His Promised Land.
  • Jesus said, “If ye love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He shall give you another Comforter, that He may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him: but ye know Him; for He dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”
  •  Loving the Lord Jesus Christ means a life of worship. Worship is loving the Lord with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Jesus said that if we love Him we will obey Him. 
  • Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love Me, he will keep My words: and My Father will love him, and We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him. 
  • He that loveth Me not keepeth not My sayings: and the word which ye hear is not Mine, but the Father's which sent Me. These things have I spoken unto you, being yet present with you.” John 14:23-25 KJV
  • He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me: and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father, and I will love him, and will manifest Myself to him. ~John 14:15-18, 21, KJV

Receiving the Holy Spirit is predicated upon loving and obeying the Lord Jesus Christ. We must keep our focus steadily on the Lord Jesus Christ and not on the world because the Lord said that “ ... the world cannot receive, (the Holy Spirit) because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him...”

  • This is why the scriptures warn Gods children repeatedly, “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.” Romans 12:2 KJV

  • We can’t have the Holy Spirit or discern God’s will as long as we are living in conformity to the world and ignoring Christ’s voice. For then we make the world our god, and not Christ. 

  • Jesus said, “ No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” -Matthew 6:24 KJV
  • John the Apostle warned, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.” 1 John 2:15-17 KJV
  • When we love the world we are letting go of Christ’s hand, turning our gaze away from His beautiful face and choosing another path. The only stable thing that won’t be swallowed up by that ocean or sink in that sand though ultimately is Christ and*His Word, His Truth. ( represented in the painting by His *lighthouse.)
  •  We make the choice to remain with Christ and Abide in His Word, or to let go of His hand and to stop believing in Him, and obeying Him, and His truth, His word. (See John 15:4-6)

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One of the main ways we obey Christ is to love each other and to forgive each other. We cannot say we love Jesus and not love other people made in God’s image. 

  • *If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?” ~ 1 John 4:20
  • We cannot break Christ’s Law of Love and pretend we are His children. Jesus said, “ By this shall all men know that ye are My disciples, if ye have love one to another...” John 13:35

Christ our Heavenly Intercessor

(The Card that represents Christ praying.)

  • Jesus Christ is at His Heavenly Father’s right hand interceding for us all. The author of Hebrews says “Wherefore He is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” Hebrews 7:25 KJV
  • Paul the apostle wrote in the book of Romans that not only does Christ pray for us, but that the Holy Spirit also prays for us when we don’t know what or how to pray as we should. This is so comforting! 
  • “Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit Himself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And He that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because He maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
  • Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.” Romans 8:26-27, 33-34 KJV
  • Whenever I am tempted to condemn or judge or criticize another soul all I have to do is to look at this painting of Jesus praying at the Father’s right hand for the souls He died to redeem. 
  • His word says, “Who is he that condemns? Who dares to condemn the souls whom Christ has justified and declared not guilty?”
  • That verse from Romans 8:34 is enough to put me in my place. 
  • Jesus spilled His spotless blood to cleanse and redeem all souls who come to Him for salvation and no one who loves Jesus if they know better should be condemning and accusing His children. 
  • For that is what the enemy does according to Revelations 12:10. He accuses the brethren. 
  • When we use our mouths, our pens, whatever method of communication we use to condemn, rail at, accuse, slander, and gossip about others, we are throwing the ball in the wrong court.
  •  This is not what God’s people are supposed to do. 
  • This is something we must confess and be sorry for and stop doing if it is an activity we have been doing. 
  • Christ will forgive us if we will not do this thing anymore. Because condemning others is what the enemy does. 
  • It is disobeying Christ’s command to love.  

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” ~ 1 John 1:9-10

The Angel Writing In The Book Of Life -  

This card is one of the most reassuring cards of all in the collection to me sometimes. 

  • One time a friend asked me to pray for the salvation of her two children. 
  • As I kept interceding for them, the Holy Spirit inspired me to write their name in the Lambs Book of Life (on the card) and give it to my friend and tell her to pray in faith  that their names will be written there in the Heavenly Book, for their salvation. 
  • That was how we prayed. I believe their names are written in Heaven for with God all things are possible. (*I know that just writing one’s name on a card doesn’t make us saved though!) 
  • Jesus Christ is the Author of Our Salvation, our faith, our hope, our door to the Heavenly Father.  
  • Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” ~John 14:6 KJV
  • Asking Jesus into our heart is how we invite Christ to save our soul. However, He can save a soul any way He wishes to. 
  • True salvation is always a matter of the heart. 
  • God alone knows its true condition.

“Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory, for Thy mercy, and for Thy truth's sake.

  • But our God is in the heavens: He hath done whatsoever He hath pleased.” Psalms 115:1, 3 KJV

  • God saves us because He loves us and He wants to save us. 

  • “For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.” 1 Timothy 2:3-4 KJV

Spiritual Significance 

The Spiritual Significance of these cards lend themselves to so many encouraging applications and I am always learning new things from the comforting metaphors they represent. 

One need not purchase them to study the illustrations in the collection as they are dispersed throughout my shop site in many different products from encouraging cards to prayer song books to album covers to calendars, to small matted prints. 

I love these pictures that the Lord inspired  so much that I put them everywhere so that they can comfort everyone as much as they comfort me! 

As I pray and ask the Lord to teach me, I’m always learning encouraging new lessons from them.

Christ alone can tell each of us what we must do. His ways are not our ways. And what is right for one is not the same for another. We are all different. Our Lord cherishes each of us as if we are the only one He has to love. He holds our hand, He holds our heart, and from our soul He won't depart... 

“…for He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.” ~ Hebrews 13:5b

The Encouraging Greeting Card Collection: Each Card Has Significance: Copyright © 2020 by Suzanne Davis Harden, All rights reserved. tock

https://www.wingspublications.shop/listing/130725611/greeting-card-set-inspirational-greeting

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About The Cards

Each greeting card in the set is printed on fine quality card stock and comes with matching envelope. The cards measure 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches (5.5"x 4.25") and are packaged in a beautiful gold gift box with a gold band. 

All cards feature an encouraging bible verse inside except the Angel card, which is blank.

The right side of the cards are blank for sharing your thoughts & sentiments. 

These unique cards are very special and unlike anything you will find anywhere else. 

When you share one of these beautiful cards with someone, your recipient will know they are getting a card that says you care very much about them. For these cards are always treasured by those who receive them.