Trading Sorrow for Joy (2); 2026; 16" x 16"; mixed media: watercolor, acrylic, India ink, alcohol ink, chalk. I still don't really understand what happened that night in Zimbabwe a year ago, but I know that something shifted, some eternal truth took root. At the time, I knew that only painting would integrate the experience…Read more Trading Sorrow For Joy
hope
Trading Our Sorrow For Joy
Trading Our Sorrow For Joy; 2026; 16.5" x 20.5"; mixed media: watercolor, acrylic, alcohol inks, India inks, chalk. This weekend I asked a two year old, "What do you think this painting is about?" She replied without hesitation, "Jesus." And with that, after nine months of working on it, it's finished. I hope it tells…Read more Trading Our Sorrow For Joy
The Children Are All Ours
“The children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe” (James Baldwin)
An Invitation to an Upside Down Kingdom: The Meek
Team members were deeply disturbed by the idea of meekness. That day, as we’d served in Kenya together, we’d studied, “blessed are those who mourn.” But at dinner, team members brought up the beatitude we would study the next day, already distressed by it. People proposed various definitions of “meek,” from being a doormat to…Read more An Invitation to an Upside Down Kingdom: The Meek
An Invitation to an Upside Down Kingdom
The Beatitudes Joy of Kenya; 2013; 21" x 28 1/2"; mixed media: watercolor, pastel, charcoal. Many years ago, in 2002, I stumbled across an old, out-of-print book about the Beatitudes in a used bookstore on the outskirts of Nairobi. Starting my first day in an unfamiliar environment, displaced from my usual frame of reference, I…Read more An Invitation to an Upside Down Kingdom
Healing to Become A Healer
Around the world, I’ve discovered a universal truth in my work as Director of Orphan Care for Hope’s Promise. And in my role as a parent, family member, and friend. As a human. Trauma wounds. But attachment heals. Flight of the Kambu: from wounded to healed; 2024; 15.5" x 8.25"; mixed media: watercolor, acrylic, ink,…Read more Healing to Become A Healer
Jerusalem
Jerusalem; 2024; 19.5" x 25.5"; mixed media: watercolor, ink, chalk, acrylic. Three of us walk its busy streets at dusk, life pulsing all around. Cars revving, children laughing as they swing in a park, light fading over a vast city. We follow our map down a quieter lane to an obscure gate in a wall,…Read more Jerusalem
Colleen Briggs Images & Writing 