By Hillary Asbury –

As a teenager, my friends in youth group had a running joke that the answer to every bible study question was an enthusiastic “Jesus!”

How do you know you are saved? Jesus! Where do you turn in times of trouble? Jesus! What is your favorite color? Jesus! Whatever the question was, someone would always shout “Jesus!”

Not much has changed for me in some ways.

Each time I set out to illustrate a piece of scripture I find myself wanting to illustrate it with a cross. New testament reading? Its pointing to our salvation so the answer is: a cross! Old testament lesson? Clearly, it’s a picture of the Messiah: cross!

Everything constantly points to Christ and so I constantly turn to the cross in my work.

Because of this, I’ve done many different versions of cross illustrations and explored a lot of great symbolism centered around Christ’s death and resurrection. Even so, I am quite hard on myself and often think I should be finding more creative, imaginative solutions. Which I sometimes do.

But the cross is always my first thought.

Perhaps I shouldn’t beat myself up about it so much. After all, how bad can it be to turn to Christ first in anything? Wasn’t the cross the ultimate answer to the worlds biggest question?

Was Jesus not the only solution?

I’m a liturgical artist. It makes sense that I would draw and paint the cross over and over again, just as we turn to Christ over and over again in our faith.

Jesus is still the best answer I know.