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About

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This is my testimony...

 

Creativity has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I spent hours coloring and cutting out paper dolls and colorful images in department store catalogs as early as three years of age, which progressed into a love for arts and crafts. Once in school, I excelled in assignments that involved creative expression.  As I grew older I began to explore nature and enjoyed long walks on the land surrounding our home. I began to draw and loved taking photos with a camera received on my twelfth birthday. In my early teens, I discovered fashion magazines and a whole new creative world opened up to me.  I loved the images, the stories they conveyed, the design and color. 

 

I moved to Dallas shortly after high school and longed to create art and pursue a Fine Arts degree.  I believed in God but did not know much about Him or that He had a purpose for my life. I bought into the lies that were so prevalent to creatives back then that art was not a wise college major, you could not make a living pursuing art, would starve, etc.  I needed to support myself so I set my dream aside and started to work in cosmetic sales.

God continued what He had started in my creative development nonetheless. The sales position eventually led to an opportunity as a make-up artist. My strength was enhancing eyes and with full access to beautiful color pallets, I loved it! In addition, I worked as a Concierge in a  large convention center hotel in order to make ends meet. In the early 80’s, I was offered a position in the Commercial Real Estate industry, which involved event planning.  This led to additional opportunities and a career that involved many creative projects over the next 20 years. During this time period, I was seeking God but did not put Him first in my life. I made major life choices without truly knowing Him, much less His will for my life.  I married, started a family and was a very busy working mom. I did not know God’s Word, the Bible, and had never heard of the Holy Spirit. In my early thirties, a friend at work mentioned the Holy Spirit in conversation and I did not understand what she meant, who she was referring to.  She gave me a book the very next day, and a week or so later I invited Him into my heart. I was immediately filled and surrounded by His presence! Totally overwhelmed by the experience, I began intentionally seeking Him and He revealed Himself to me again by illuminating His Word to me in a way I had never experienced, it seemed to jump off the page as I read it:

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“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.  For EVERYONE who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened”.

(Luke 11:9-10)

 

This was such a new experience and as time passed I fell back into my usual routine.  I continued to pray but was not disciplined and did not even recognize the importance of reading and speaking His word daily. I had never heard of the "secret place" or friendship with the Lord. The secret place is a quiet place you choose to meet with God and spend time alone with Him on a daily basis in prayer, meditating on His word, quietly waiting for His presence, His voice. I lacked understanding and failed to make vital changes in my life. I fell back into the pattern of reading books about the Bible but avoided the actual Bible because it was hard to understand. I was so busy with family and work responsibilities, I was rarely still.   


In 2013, life events turned my world upside down. My marriage of 23 years fell apart and life as I knew it was no more. I had heard that recovering from divorce is a grief process, much like death, and found that to be true. 

Then in 2015, drug addiction in my family threatened further loss and forced me to stay on my face before God.  As the wilderness journey that I was in continued, I began to experience His presence as never before, made changes in my life, joined a church and committed to obeying His Word. Then slowly, restoration began.  I remarried in 2016 and was encouraged to pursue my dream of creating art.

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l began to paint and create art like never before and was so happy, it seemed surreal. Then during a service at our church in August of 2017, a pastor singled me out of the congregation and spoke prophetic words to me for the remaining months of the year, September through December, which included the following, “Fear has no hold on you.  Seek counsel but take steps of faith, even if they seem reckless. God will restore, God will refresh, God will reveal His direction for you. October will see doors unlocked.”  Filled with hope, I attended an artisan conference in September 2017 and returned home totally inspired.

 

October 22-27, 2017

Shortly after returning home from the artisan conference, God confirmed art as my purpose and my direction forward by speaking to me in the most amazing vivid dreams.

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Read more about Toni's Dreams...

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