Here, on 'I Paint Dreams’, art is more than just a mere display of creative skills.

It is a silhouette shaping the story of how Jesus has shed the light of His Word supernaturally in Esther's life. Jesus can transform the life of anyone that will follow Him.

 . . .

'Up from the Miry Clay'

Esther is of Nigerian and Ghanaian descent. In the year 1998, she was born in the United Kingdom. Growing up in London's notoriously busy land, witnessing the heart-wrenching family break down and the aftermath of financial instability meant that she learned to be familiar with the unusual feeling of instability throughout her childhood.

Being as timid as she was, she felt helpless and resorted to believing that this was the normal way of family life.

. . .

"I once was lost, but now I am found."

Esther was moved with her three siblings from Great London to the tiny city of Winchester, with the hopes of having a new start. To Esther and her family, it was opposite in every way to the land she once knew. Despite the family breakdown, Esther's most prominent and joyous memories are entertaining her siblings with illustrative stories she created. Esther experienced challenges and triumphs when adapting to the culture and people of the new rural area. London seemed like a place filled with culture and diversity. Whereas the new-found life in Winchester introduced Esther to new eye-opening experiences. For the first time, Esther encountered being teased for acknowledging faith. Here, Esther also learned the meaning of the term 'racism.'  During secondary school, Esther learned to fit in by following the world of the youth's social trends and learned to hide personal aspects of herself. She did this to avoid being too different. Never revealing the deep thoughts she had about life, Esther became skilled in being quiet about questions about God.

In Kings' School, Winchester Esther merrily obtained her GCSEs. She was particularly drawn to English Literature and poetry because she loved to dissect scripts and narrative poems to understand the intentions, history, and emotions of writers. Of her favourites were 'An Inspector Calls' by J.B Priestly. Scribbling stories and creative sketches were always a hidden hobby. But at the age of 14, Esther became fascinated by using different art mediums, mostly oil paints. To her, every colour carried its own emotion. Every image beheld another story. The art classrooms of Kings' School Winchester became a new world to her, a space of tranquillity and escape into an old-time hobby.

In 2015, Esther dropped out of Fine Art Studies because she listened to the advice of the friendly yet doubting few. She fixed her eyes on alternative and mainstream academic studies. Art and poetry remained in her life, but only as an escape in her own time. It was a way of expressing herself emotionally and spiritually. One of Esther's most significant obstacles was a newly formed addiction to self-harm and seasons of depression during her adolescence. Seasons of personal battles led her Esther to seek and cry out to a God that she had never known before, a God that had never been conveyed to her in the right way. Esther was baptized in the year 2016.

From a very young age, Esther began to encounter bouts of sleep paralysis. Without questioning what it was and where it came from, Esther continued to live what she thought was a normal childhood. At the age of 13, Esther fell into the addiction to self-harm. She never thought that dark memories of her childhood could trickle into her adolescence. Battles with seasons of depression, sleep attacks, and feelings of hopelessness began to intensify.

With regards to Esther’s educational career, she managed to maintain a fairly normal lifestyle. However, at the age of 10 was yet to encounter mental and verbal abuse from a soon-to-be step father for further years. Seasons of pain and remembrance of scenes of difficulties in her family left Esther feeling discouraged about her chances in life and even God's truth.

I rejected the name of Jesus, not realising that He was the hope that was waiting for me to see.

But within due time, she would be reconciled to the Father and delivered from depression and spiritual attacks. When Esther became 17 years old, she began to realize something new. God was persistent in bringing significant strangers into her life. She recalled being stopped in public towns by unfamiliar faces. People used to tell her things about her life, even troubles she had never shared with any human being before.

 . . .

"Jesus didn't do it to shame me, but to show me that He knows, and He sees."

Little did Esther know that the God who can see all and know all can also do all. Through divine encounters on the street, Esther came to know that Jesus is not a distant God, but an all-knowing, all-seeing, and ever-present interceding Saviour. She began to seek the One who had reached down to her by reading the dusty and abandoned Bible in the bookcase corner of her room.

 . . .

Overcoming Depression and Spiritual Attacks with Jesus

"The gospel message was so beautifully offensive! One at a time, it confronted the way I think about myself, the world and people who have wronged me.

As I continued to go back to the Bible, Jesus revealed to me how I was looking for a distraction from emotional grief and memories of pain by afflicting physical pain. Psychologically, it was as though it was easier to use physical distractions rather than addressing the dark memories of yesterday. He told me that the scars I had self-afflicted, He had already borne for me on that rugged cross.

Jesus healed me."

After coming to the knowledge of Christ, Esther began a new journey of repentance and finding her identity through Jesus. Realizing the sacrifice God had made for her, she decided to dedicate her art to Jesus. Soon biblical narrations and revelations of the heart of God sprung forth.

Today, Esther is 22 and has plans of sharing these personal revelations through images. Esther still knows that an individual needn't see to believe that there is a God who sees them. However, having pictures to remind you of Jesus' presence is a blessing she desires to share with the world. To the fleshly mind, spiritual realities are hidden, and the Bible can seem like an old history book to many. But to the spiritual mind, to read the Bible means to read the tablets of the eternal Father's heart. There is a freedom to express God's truth on this platform, which can burst into your life in colour today if you believe.

I used to believe that this life held a lack of purpose and hope. We live in a competitive world that encourages us to hide unique characteristics, even aspects of ourselves that are God-given. We eat to work and work hard so that we can eat. It is easy to have our perspective of this life darkened when we don't see the purpose of Jesus Christ.”

“Throughout my life I have learned that seeing isn't always believing. However, I now know that I have needed to see Jesus through His Word to understand the purpose of this life and walk in it.

And now, the things unseen, I take joy in sharing with you."

By Esther Chinyere Iwuji