When 40 days turns into 70

Back in February I had the bright idea of making some videos on the topic of using drawing, painting and collage in prayer journaling. I found my original notes the other day and I was going to do 6 videos. Not a big endeavour, but at the time a very daunting one because I didn't have a YouTube channel and I'd never edited or published a video before. I had a go at a 'short', lasting 46 seconds with no voiceover or introduction, just me adding gold leaf to a watercolour painting. Nothing bad happened, my computer didn't explode, YouTube uploaded it and found people to watch it. Amazingly it has had 861 views so far without any advertising.

As you can see, I filmed it from my phone using a portrait rather than landscape orientation and I didn't know how to change it, and the focus is terrible. But the important thing was that I now had a YouTube channel and I'd posted my first video. Filming and posting another 6 videos didn't seem so daunting now.

Foolishly I'd been telling people what I was going to do and somehow the 6 videos turned into a series for Lent so now it was 40 videos. I was committing myself to filming, editing and uploading one video a day during Lent with Sundays off. Now I was daunted! What on earth would I find to fill a prayer journal with (that I was happy to share with the world)? And maybe I needed to speak on these videos, so how was I going to record the audio? And what about lighting? And overhead filming?

Well, I had a steep-learning curve but I found the answers and the equipment that I needed, and learnt how to put together a series of videos with me talking and creating journal pages, and of course background music for the time-lapse sections.

I started to make videos. To begin with, that's all I thought about: my entire day was organised around that day's video, and I was working on the theme and the content in my head even when I was doing other things. To my huge surprise I was enjoying the process enormously. I had started way outside my comfort zone and yet there was nothing I would rather be doing. The prayer journal I have created has become to me like a precious jewel that shines in the light.

I started the process in obedience to God. I knew this was something He wanted me to do, and He encouraged me every step of the way. When I wanted to step back because I knew I couldn't produce perfect videos He insisted that He didn't want perfection: He wanted 40 videos published to the world. And He told me that when I had finished the 40 videos I would have the skills to make good videos in the future (not perfect, because He want perfection from me, just obedience.) He also reminded me that He had never asked me to finish the series in 40 days, just to make 40 videos. Which is good, because of course Lent has long gone and I'm only on video 36 so far. I will finish the 40 soon, but life got in the way as it always does. We can make plans but we don't know what is going to happen next.