Hope When Life Throws You A Curve
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Judi is known for her warm enthusiasm. Her love of God is evident in how she truly enjoys people, and desires to see them encouraged and uplifted. She is a gifted writer, international speaker (Presenting the First cancer workshop in Majuro and Ebeye, Marshall Islands). Judi is a professional singer/musician (piano, guitar, flute, voice). She devotes time to speaking, writing, traveling, and enjoying her husband Bob (47+ years) and their adult children with their own families scattered around USA. Judi has enjoyed leading out in Family life, Women’s Ministry, Children’s ministry, and many other areas of service and interest, spanning a career of work and volunteering for over 40 years, including time out for raising family.
When their youngest left for college (Twenty years after receiving her BS in Social Work) she went back to school herself obtaining her master’s degree in Social Work. She then obtained her LCSW (Licensed Clinical Social Worker) and enjoyed her work as a therapist. Judi treasures helping others to realize that God is there to help us cope with life’s trials. You will find that Judi is sincere in desiring you to be aware that YOU are highly loved by God, and all hardships and joys are used to grow you, as you become God’s Masterpiece.
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Whether you’ve lost a child, a loved one, or your health to cancer, or some other devastating illness or accident. Perhaps you’ve lost a job, a life-long dream, or your financial security; maybe you lost your home or your reputation.
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a sea que haya perdido un hijo, un ser querido o su salud por cáncer, o alguna otra enfermedad devastadora o accidente. Tal vez haya perdido un trabajo, un sueño de toda la vida o su seguridad financiera; tal vez perdiste tu hogar o tu reputación.
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Robert P.
A family member was recently diagnosed with a serious illness. This short book is just wonderful for people who aren’t able to wade through lots of text, but need comfort and reassurance that God has not forgotten them. The combination of beautiful art, captions, scripture selections, and narrative is just wonderful and make this book a perfect gift for a friend or loved one suffering some kind of significant loss.
Jan Lee
Dearest Judi! I just read your book from the front cover to the back! It is beautifully written and the illustrations are exceptional! The best part is that all of the glory is placed on God! What a touching collection of thoughts and promises that God is with us every step of the way! It truly is a Masterpiece as are you!!! Thank you for such a lovely gift! Love you so much! Blessings Always, Jan
Patricia
Rather than a “book” this is a pictorial reflection on some of the most devastating moments in human’s lives. Remember those beautiful little books your could pick up at the card store that reflected on devotion and feelings when you were down? This is also great gift for someone, when you have NO CLUE what to say…those devastating times when you need words, but don’t have any. It’s beautifully written and beautifully illustrated. It is something that one can easily refer to in times of need.
Robert P.
A family member was recently diagnosed with a serious illness. This short book is just wonderful for people who aren’t able to wade through lots of text, but need comfort and reassurance that God has not forgotten them. The combination of beautiful art, captions, scripture selections, and narrative is just wonderful and make this book a perfect gift for a friend or loved one suffering some kind of significant loss.
Jan Lee
Dearest Judi! I just read your book from the front cover to the back! It is beautifully written and the illustrations are exceptional! The best part is that all of the glory is placed on God! What a touching collection of thoughts and promises that God is with us every step of the way! It truly is a Masterpiece as are you!!! Thank you for such a lovely gift! Love you so much! Blessings Always, Jan
Patricia
Rather than a “book” this is a pictorial reflection on some of the most devastating moments in human’s lives. Remember those beautiful little books your could pick up at the card store that reflected on devotion and feelings when you were down? This is also great gift for someone, when you have NO CLUE what to say…those devastating times when you need words, but don’t have any. It’s beautifully written and beautifully illustrated. It is something that one can easily refer to in times of need.
Welcome to “You Are His Masterpiece,” a transformative journey that unveils the divine artistry within each of us. Our mission is to help you recognize your inherent worth and unique purpose, empowering you to live a life filled with meaning and fulfillment.
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by Judith Lacy Hewes, LCSW
Youarehismasterpiece Publishing
book review by Barbara Bamberger Scott
“Like Noah, you may find yourself buffeted about in a tiny boat amidst the world-wide
flood… of emotions.”
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Author Hewes has created an inspirational guide for those who have suffered calamities, offering the path to relief and rebuilding. Set on a foundation of Christian faith, her methods are based on her own experience surrounding a family loss. A message sprang to her mind, seeming to encompass the sense of sorrow that pervades such a happening: “A mother’s eyes are like pools in a sea of grief when she loses a child.” This became the basis for Hewes’ exhortations and comfort offered to others, resulting in dynamic verbal guidance supported by A. J. McCoy’s shimmering artwork.
A ferocious lion ready to consume with fierce jaws those who are possessed by discouragement is transmuted into a calm beast with a closed mouth and serene gaze. Thus does God transform one’s sufferings into triumphs, like the master potter’s hands fashioning beautiful, practical work from simple clay. Just as Jesus, by God’s plan, overcame worldly cruelty, so might anyone be renewed through God’s care. A job loss, poverty, or other sufferings of life’s “internship” can lead, Hewes declares, to safety, love, and growth through faith.
Hewes, a licensed clinical social worker, is a speaker, writer, musician, and a leader in ministry who has enhanced this small but significant work through passages from the Holy Bible and through her collaboration with McCoy, a widely recognized virtuoso in illustrating and sculpture. Both have devoted energies to overseas projects and here offer their substantial talents with the sincere wish to invest their audience with the will to accept life’s challenges, understanding them as part of a higher plan to make each individual a work of spiritually imbued artistry. It is certain that their shared efforts will encourage readers of all ages and circumstances to review, revise, and enhance their lives with new purpose and expanded religious dedication.
Author Judi Lacy Hewes’ You Are His Masterpiece – Hope When Life Throws You A Curve is a compact, inspirational work which offers a combination of spiritual narrative, Bible quotations, and complementary artwork intended to help those suffering from a significant loss.
Hewes’ writing is a balm for those dealing with sorrow and heartache. Intent on consoling a family member who endured a miscarriage, here she chose words to soothe, rather than just validate the pain of misfortune. Hewes shows us God as the Master Potter who will shape us on his wheel into a refined vessel. Ultimately it is His artistry and craft that will determine what we go through and the unique, finished design.
As a result, this book helps the grieving to understand God’s intervention by using Biblical stories which reflect experiences of loss. Whether the loss is of a loved one, health due to illness, a job, a home, or even credibility, comparisons are made between contemporary suffering and relatable renderings in the likes of Noah, Job, and God’s sacrifices through Jesus. Hewes stresses that God is in control of our lives and is there “to give hope” and turn each of us into a Masterpiece. Purposefully he will transform our questions into wisdom. While the book’s overall pacing seems a bit slow, it remains consistent and steady which seems to mirror the genuine feel of the writing as a quiet, contemplative sharing of Biblical and spiritual thought.
Hewes’ writing is artfully enhanced by the realistic illustrations of AJ McCoy. Full-color images are dispersed throughout the narrative and depict a variety of complimentary visuals. From the opening words of “a mother’s eyes are like pools in a sea of grief after
she loses a child” with a close-up that features a teardrop shaped like a grieving person in the corner of an eye against an ocean background; to a lost bleating lamb; a patient receiving medical treatments; or God’s invisible hand of protection over one’s own when
we’ve reached the end of our rope and are ready to fall into the abyss, McCoy’s artistry reflects God’s ever presence in our time of need. There is also a short guide for McCoy’s artwork that helps to point out and interpret details within the illustrations.
Interestingly Hewes concludes the volume with several pages of positive reader reviews. While some may see these as mere filler, phrases like “A beacon of light in the darkness”, “A small book with a BIG Message”, and “A touching collection of thoughts and promises that God is with us every step of the way!” all showcase the book’s favorable choice as a compendium for those seeking peace and comfort, especially in trying times.
God can turn trauma and loss into wisdom and strength if we open our hearts, according to this lavishly illustrated
Christian meditation on spiritual healing.
Hewes, a licensed clinical social worker, writer, and speaker, addresses readers who are grieving the deaths of loved ones, ill health, or miscarriages—“A Mother’s eyes are like pools in a sea of grief when she loses a child,” she writes—with consolation from a biblical perspective. She uses the metaphor of God as the Master Potter, who, when troubles shatter us, reshapes the clay of our souls into a more exquisite masterpiece by using our suffering to impart understanding and
compassion. Hewes drives home the message of divine reclamation by touching on the experiences of Noah, Job, and other biblical figures who were rescued by God from dire tribulations. Centering the book is a discourse on Jesus’ sacrifice in facing torture and execution to save souls and his eagerness to salve humanity’s anguish. (Later sections of the book compile Gospel passages about Jesus’ betrayal, passion, death on the cross, and resurrection.) Hewes’ advice unfolds in pithy sermonettes, her prose combining the color and drama of Bible stories with psychological encouragement: “But as with Jonah, the Lord makes a way out. You / may feel swallowed by the whale of loss, / Praying in agony from the belly of this monster, without hope, or plan… / Somehow you find yourself thrown up on shore, / Weak, covered with the grime of
the journey / With a new perspective and the beginnings of a new resolve…to live!” The impact of Hewes’ writing is strengthened by artist McCoy’s rich, full-color illustrations, which are realistic but infused with miraculous elements. They include a scene of light breaking through storm clouds to illuminate the crosses on Golgotha while a tomb yawns beneath; of Jesus beckoning the viewer to walk behind him on water; and of the Second Coming, with Christ and angels returning in glorious light amid volcanic eruptions as the lame walk, the dead climb out of their graves, the righteous rise to meet him, and sinners flee in terror. The result is an exhilarating restatement of Christianity’s promise of solace and redemption. A warmly reassuring religious self-helper that mixes vigorous prose and vibrant visuals.
Judith Lacy Hewes
A. J. McCoy, Illustrator
Youarehismasterpiece Publishing
(54pp)
978-1-73580-100-1
You Are His Masterpiece is a healing self-help book with recommendations for trusting in God’s process.
Judith Lacy Hewes’s hope-filled religious self-help book You Are His Masterpiece is a guide for those dealing with significant spiritual and personal losses.
Through the loss of her daughter’s pregnancy, a cancer remission, and a family friend’s stillbirth, Hewes dreamed the words “A mother’s eyes are like pools in a sea of grief after she loses a child.” By accident, she sent a harmful, condensed version of the quote to the friend. She then beseeched God for a way to write words that heal rather than just validate pain. The result—this book—guides the grieving to see God’s presence with the aid of biblical stories that
reflect experiences of loss.
The book acknowledges a variety of grieving situations, including the loss of life from COVID-19, loss of health, and loss of income. This welcoming opening is followed by direct, powerful verses with metaphors including ferocious, devouring beasts and the enveloping ocean used to convey terror and grief. Oil paintings are an additional medium
through which the book seeks spiritual meaning, as with a portrait of a smiling woman in a head wrap who’s hooked up to a chemotherapy machine, accompanied by the verse “threaten your hold on God… on life.”
The framing, expressions, and subject matter of the book’s illustrations are earnest and weighty. God is compared to a potter who molds human experiences—including those of loss; this notion is complemented by the images of a potter’s hands, framed in warm browns and white watercolors. Indeed, many of the early illustrations are framed in a
white void. This makes the later expansiveness of a desert, a mountain valley rained on by God’s tears, and the resurrection cave of Jesus with the rock pushed aside all the more meaningful. Further, there are comparisons between contemporary suffering and the suffering of Job, Noah’s tumultuous ocean endurance, and God’s sacrifice through Jesus that are forwarded with sympathy.
However, such powerful evocations fade in the second half of the book, which dives into suggestions for how to be a good believer, accompanied by examples of how not to be one. These descriptions are neutral, withholding judgment,
but they still complicate the book’s previously uncomplicated tone, which focused on healing and serenity. Further, references to Jesus’s return are introduced—a further implication of judgment. Indeed, the book’s later questions and suggestions for contemplation detract from the subtlety of its earlier work, as where the text points out God’s tears in
the illustration of a sky without necessity. Additionally, the biblical verses put forth as subjects for contemplation are quite well known, and the text does not sufficiently show how they all connect to its messages about being a good believer and finding spiritual healing.
You Are His Masterpiece is a self-help book with recommendations for trusting in God’s process as the best way to heal.
Source: https://www.forewordreviews.com/reviews/you-are-his-masterpiece/
Judith Lacy Hewes, LCSW, illustrated by A.J. McCoy
Publisher: Youarehismasterpiece Publishing Pages: 54 Price: (paperback) $16.99 ISBN: 9781735801001
Reviewed: April, 2024 Author Website:
Judith Hewes comforts those who are grieving in this picture-book style message of God’s love for the brokenhearted.
Written to console a devastated mother after her baby was stillborn, Hewes’ message of God as the master designer of our lives aims to bring hope, comfort and peace to those suffering the loss of something precious. She writes, “Whether you’ve lost a child, a loved one, or your health to some devastating illness…or maybe you’ve lost our home, job, income, or perhaps your reputation…God, the Master Artist of our lives is there…to give you hope and turn you into the Masterpiece [He] designed you to be.”
Beautiful illustrations by artist AJ McCoy accompany Hewes’ simple, empathetic message in which she mirrors the struggles of Bible characters like Jonah, Job and Noah, with various feelings of grief. For example, she writes, “Like Noah, you may find yourself buffeted about in a tiny boat amidst the world-wide flood…of emotions.” The experience of turning each page anticipating the next amazing artwork feels reminiscent of childhood—snuggled in the arms of a caretaker, listening to the reading of a favorite story. Hewes’ message is doled out slowly and compassionately in a way that feels like a calming, uplifting literary hug.
For some, however, Hewes’ work may feel a bit too simple and brief. The artwork ends on page 30, and after just five pages of prose, she resorts to reprinting large sections of scriptures from the Bible to fill some of the book’s 53 pages. She includes an interpretive guide for the book’s artwork that may either come across as helpful or mildly insulting, as she points out obvious elements in the illustrations. The book ends with four pages of reviews by readers.
Despite its brevity—and what can seem like filler material—the book could be suitable as a unique gift for a grieving loved one or anyone suffering from loss.
