Heaven in the Kitchen | The Story Behind May's Holy Muse Mail Letter

I left the food processor on the counter for three days.

My husband had used it to make dog food out of meat scraps. He said he'd wash it. And I waited, not impatiently, not dramatically,  just quietly. Giving him the chance to follow through. Hoping he would prove me wrong about how this was going to end.

He didn't.

On day three I took it apart, scrubbed every piece, dried it, and put it away. He didn't notice. I didn't say anything. We moved on with our day like it never happened.

It's such a small thing. Almost embarrassing to even write about. But I've been turning it over ever since, because I think it's actually THE thing. The invisible thing. The thing women do a hundred times a week without anyone keeping count.

We show up. We serve. We quietly do what needs doing and we don't make it a thing.

And most of the time, nobody notices.

 

Or so it feels.

That's what I wanted to paint. Not the grand gesture. Not the moment anyone would photograph or post about. The ordinary one. The one that happens in kitchens and carpool lines and church hallways and quiet Wednesday evenings all over the world.

The one nobody sees.

Except that's not entirely true.

I painted angels because I believe in them.

Not as a theological abstraction. As a reality.

My brother-in-law is Brian Kershisnik, a painter whose work has shaped how I see art and expression. Some of his most beloved paintings depict angels surrounding ordinary people in ordinary moments. Not grand, dramatic angels. Quiet ones. Present ones. Close enough to touch.

I would look at his work and think, yes. That's what it feels like. That's what I believe.

( Brian Kershisnik with my daughters. The painting behind them is his, “She Will FInd What is Lost” https://www.kershisnik.com/w-o-r-d-s/2017/7/7/a-general-note-about-she-will-find-what-is-lost )

I believe angels are with us. Whether they are messengers sent by God, or loved ones who have gone before us, I'm honestly not certain of all the theology. But I believe in the presence. I believe in the watching. I believe that the ordinary moments of our lives are not as unwitnessed as they feel.

So I painted a woman at her kitchen sink.

Pink dress. Apron strings. Flowers on the counter. The kind of morning that looks like every other morning.

And I painted three angels around her. Close. Attentive. Present in a room she thinks is empty except for her.

She doesn't know they're there.

But they are.

And if they are watching her,  really watching her, then they are watching the woman who cleaned the food processor too. The woman who showed up again when nobody asked. The woman whose quiet faithfulness fills the ordinary hours of every day.

Which brings me to the thing I wanted to say most.

It's okay that nobody noticed.

Not in a resigned, bitter, swallow-it-down kind of way. In a genuinely okay way.

When we serve others quietly, when we clean the food processor and don't mention it, when we show up and volunteer and say the kind thing and do the right thing without announcement or applause, something is happening that we can't always see.

It is being witnessed.

"The Lord your God is in your midst. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you with His love." — Zephaniah 3:17

He rejoices over her. The woman at the sink. The woman who left it for three days hoping someone else would do it and then quietly did it herself. The woman whose faithful, unglamorous showing up goes unnoticed by everyone in her house.

Not by Him.

Not in a greeting card way. In a real way. In a you are not invisible way.

That's what I wanted her to feel when she hung this painting in her kitchen. Not that her work is glamorous or her days are extraordinary.

But that heaven is present in them.

That the ordinary place where she stands every day, tired, unnoticed, doing what needs doing, is not abandoned by God.

It is full of Him.

Heaven in the Kitchen is the May 2026 Holy Muse Mail painting,  an original acrylic art print mailed to subscribers alongside a prayerful letter and watercolor scripture card every month.

Prints are available in my Etsy shop. https://www.etsy.com/shop/spottednest

And if you'd like this kind of quiet encouragement arriving in your mailbox every month — Holy Muse Mail was made for you.

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