By the Still Lake, Psalm 46:5 Wall Art

What is painted

A young woman with long auburn hair sits on a broad rock at the water's edge, her back to us, an open Bible on her lap. She wears a simple sage green dress. Around her grow tall grasses and small white wild daisies.

In front of her a lake lies perfectly still, reflecting the sky. Wooded hills wrapped in mist line the far shore, and the sun rises pale behind them, laying a path of light on the water. Above the scene, in a classic italic serif: “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved”, with Psalm 46:5 below. The colors are sage, warm gray and soft gold.

A river, a city and the break of day

Psalm 46 is the psalm Martin Luther paraphrased in “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”. It opens with “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble”, and imagines the earth removed and the mountains carried into the sea.

Then, in verse 4, the scene changes to calm water: “There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God.” The “her” of verse 5 is that city, Jerusalem, where God dwells. The verse goes on: “God shall help her, and that right early.” In the Hebrew the phrase means at the turning of the morning, at daybreak, which is why this painting is set at sunrise.

Christian women have long taken the verse personally, and that reading is not far from the psalm's spirit: where God dwells, what is shaken does not fall. A few verses later comes the line many know by heart, “Be still, and know that I am God.”

For a woman who holds steady

This bible verse wall art is a favorite Mother's Day gift and a thoughtful present for a sister, a friend facing a hard season, a new graduate or a woman being baptized. It fits a bedroom, a home office or a reading chair where morning devotions happen.

As Christian wall art it is serene rather than sweet, and the misty palette sits well with neutral decor. The Christian poster is printed to order in the US on thick archival matte paper, ships free within the US and arrives without a frame, surrounded by a paper margin. It comes in sizes from 5x7 to 24x36, in metric and A sizes, or as a digital file.