"All Through the Night" - by Jeff Johnson

"All Through the Night" is a beautiful picture of how spiritual music can be.
I chose to approach this song like a lullabye (part of it is taken from a Welsh lullabye).

I imagine that Mary sang a lullabye to the infant Christ. And I imagine that
the 'nativity event' was a sort of lullabye from the Creator to His Creation.

Creation lost in the chasm of night and death

GodGod knew the sad state of the Earth - lost without hope.
When He took on human flesh it was as though He was coming to comfort us,
to protect us and to provide for us. Much as I have done with my own infants.

Dark clouds tarry above: fear was great, salvation seemed far, peace was gone.

An infant doesn't really know what it needs;
neither did Creation. We just knew we needed something.
We just knew we were "groaning and waiting for redemption".

Though the world slumbered unaware and knew Him not.

I worship God through this card for the fact that as the Creator and Lord,
He knew exactly what His fallen Creation needed.

On that night, when Christ bowed the clouds, and moved from His sacred throne to our sinful depths,

One of my favorite lines in the song is:

"I can sing You praise. I will give you delight..."

The Hebrew word 'Eden' means 'delight'. With the entrance of sin into the world,
'Eden' was no longer possible between Creator and Created.

Christ had come to reclaim His Creation.

But when Christ took on our flesh, it's as though He
was saying, "Because I am here, 'Eden' is possible again. The Creation
can once again bring delight to its Creator."

"God With Us" transformed our tumultuous existence to a peaceful lullaby.

the idea for my cards

First, I wanted to incorporate an auditory element into my card project.
Since my high school days, I have sensed a spiritual element in music.
It amazes me that music can affect a person on so many different levels
and that all music has an inherent spiritual quality.

Creations' ear heard once again the soothing song of the Father like an Eden dream.

Music is an art form unique to human kind,
something we don't have in common with any other creature,
something we share only with other men and with God.

No longer an enemy of God, now a precious child He sings to sleep.

Each card I've created is either
1) based on a song that inspires me to worship, or
2) based on a Biblical truth and accompanied by a song that illustrates that truth.

As a mother sings over her child.

Secondly, I wanted to replicate art forms that have historically been
used for the purpose of worship. Gothic and Renaissance
religious art... were intended to be offerings of worship by the creators.

There's a bow in the clouds today. Oh Lord, what can I say?

For me, it was fitting to pay homage to my Christian and artistic heritage
by creating my own version of a stained glass window,
an altar piece, and illuminated manuscript, etc.
So... each card I've created is intended to be looked at and "listened to".

Emmanuel Lullaby