Artist Statement

Many imagine the gaze of God as severe or searching, a look that measures and corrects. This work offers another vision.

Not a gaze that says, Look at what you’ve done.
But one that whispers, Look at you.

This painting centers on a single moment: a daughter held in the steady, rejoicing gaze of her Father.

“But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory.”
— 2 Corinthians 3:18

Here, the daughter’s radiance does not arise from striving or perfection, but from understanding. She comes to know the unchanging nature of her Father’s love—a love that has never turned away, never hardened, never withdrawn. Only rejoiced.

The theology of this painting is shaped in part by the showings of Julian of Norwich, who wrote of encountering God’s expression not as judgment, but as tenderness beyond words. In one vision, she describes a servant falling and turning back to see—astonishingly—not reproach in God’s eyes, but love and gratitude. I imagine it as gratitude that she dared to set out, that she tried, that she loved, that she lived.

This painting imagines that look.

What if, in our failure, we met the gaze of God and encountered not condemnation, but joy—joy that we stepped into the journey at all?

In His presence, the daughter beholds Him as He truly is—and, as in a glass, who she truly is. In that beholding, her countenance begins to shine. Not because she has become perfect, but because she no longer looks away.

Her glory is not correctness, but communion.
Her radiance, love received.

THE STORY BEHIND THE PAINTING

There were years, particularly when I was young, when I misunderstood the gaze of God.

As a teenager, I often imagined Heavenly Father as an all-knowing judge—watching, measuring, seeing where I fell short. Though I understood Him to be benevolent, somewhere along the way I had formed the belief that God's attention was something to fear when I wasn't getting everything right.

I understand differently now.

I believe God does invite us to grow. He teaches, corrects, and calls us toward something higher. But I no longer believe His love waits on the other side of our becoming. It is already here. It is the very thing that carries us through it.

One of the great tragedies of misunderstanding God is believing that the One who loves us most is someone from whom we should hide.

Over time, as I have come to know God more deeply—to come before Him in communion—I have experienced more fully the nature of His love.

And now I am a mother.

I look at my own children, and especially at my daughter, and I find myself wanting deeply for them to know something I did not always understand when I was young: there is nothing they could do that would make their Heavenly Father cease to love them. I want them to know that they can always turn toward Him. That His gaze is not one they need to fear.

I want them to imagine a Father who looks upon His children with tenderness and joy—with gratitude that they came, that they chose to enter this mortal journey, that they are learning, becoming, falling, rising, and continuing forward.

The Gaze of God is, in part, my attempt to give my children that image.

It is something I wish I could place into the hands of the girl I once was, and something I hope to place into the hearts of my children:

When you turn toward God, do not be afraid to meet His eyes.

Instead, let yourself be held by them. Be held by Him.

And in the safety of His unshakable love, perhaps you can begin to see yourself as He does—and understand more fully what it means to be His child.