Notes of Faith September 7, 2026
Creative Confinement
Several years ago, through a ministry my brother started, our family got connected to a prisoner in the Texas State Penitentiary. His name is Rudolfo, and we affectionately call him “Rudy.” Rudy went to prison for robbing several gas stations with a paintbrush. He disguised the paintbrush by wrapping it in a pair of boxer shorts to make it look like a gun. He was eventually caught for his crimes, and the Texas judge who heard the case came down harshly on Rudy and sentenced him to thirty years behind bars.
After being incarcerated, Rudy joined a notorious prison gang and rose quickly through the ranks. It was originally a means to his survival. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. But God soon grabbed hold of his heart. The small prison-issue radio he was given picked up only one channel in his cell at that end of the block—Christian radio. He admits it would not have been his first choice, but it was better than static, so it really was his only choice. The music and messages delivered to his cell each day via that singular airstream began to soften his criminal heart, and he eventually gave his life to Christ.
Rudy knew he had to leave the prison gang, but there was only one way in and one way out. So, after disavowing his allegiance, he had to be put into solitary confinement for his own protection.
Rudy is an artist. You might have guessed this at the beginning of the story when he was using a paintbrush to hold up convenience stores. Our greatest weakness is our greatest strength misapplied. and Rudy’s misapplied paintbrush meant thirty years in the clink. When Rudy wanted to draw or paint in prison, he was limited to the few necessities he could purchase through the commissary. So, he learned to draw with the few tools available to him. He would send our family some of his illustrated calligraphy pieces he had done entirely with a ballpoint pen. His detail and shading were truly phenomenal. Once he sent my kid sisters handkerchiefs with scenes of Winnie-the-Pooh painted on them. They were beautifully colored and looked like they had been airbrushed. But when we read the accompanying letter Rudy had sent with them, we learned of his ingenious and rather unconventional method. Using a little water to reconstitute the candy-coated shells of M&M’s, Rudy flicked the food coloring from the bristles of a toothbrush onto the hand-kerchiefs. He would use scraps of cardboard to mask off sections where he didn’t want the paint to fall. Realizing the hours of tedium involved, we were all the more impressed. I doubt a portrait of Pooh has ever been painted so sweetly.
Our entire family’s relationship with Rudy grew over the years. My dad mentored Rudy and helped him get his GED. My parents were even able to go down and visit him a couple of times while he was still incarcerated. Rudy was always filled with so much joy, and his letters and art pieces shone with it. He was released early, having served seventeen years of his thirty-year sentence, and now lives with his wife in Texas. He is family to us, and my parents were honored guests at his wedding. He calls them Mom and Dad, and I call him brother.
My mom still has every single one of the many art pieces he so generously sent to us. For a long time, I modeled my handwriting after Rudy’s because it was so beautiful and elaborate. It is funny to think that through the Master Penman program, my last mentor was the calligrapher in the White house. But let it be known that my very first mentor was a calligrapher in the big house.
Rudy will always be a hero of mine for the skill and ingenuity of his craft and the way he never let his light go out even when he was in the darkest place. There have been many points in my life when I wish I had more or better tools to work with, and that is when I think of Rudy. I have a paint cabinet in our basement where I keep my tubes of museum-quality oil paints. I have every color, hue, and shade you can imagine. In that same cabinet I have a panoply of fine brushes in every size, neatly organized and filling several drawers. As a small reminder to be grateful for what I have and to get the most out of it, in the corner of one drawer I keep a pack of M&M’s and a toothbrush.
All the right tools are not necessary for producing lasting creations, nor are they the guarantor of mastery.
Whatever tools you have, be grateful for them and strive to get the most out of them. Throughout Scripture, there are a smattering of examples of God using people with the simple tools they already possessed and working mightily through them. for David it was his sling (1 Samuel 17), for Moses it was his staff (Exodus 4; 14), for Samson it was a jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15), and for Peter it was his fishing boat (Luke 5:3–6).
God may have used nothing more than His voice to speak the universe into existence, but Jesus redeemed the world as the final act of its creation using the least covetable tool of all—the cross.
Excerpted from The Heart of the Maker by Jake Weidmann, copyright Jacob Michael Weidmann.
If you belong to Jesus as one given faith to believe in Him, then you have been given spiritual gift(s) for the benefit of others. You may not fully understand what it is that you have or how to use it, but God will develop and lead you in blessing His body, the church, and those that are seeking Him, drawing them into faith and fellowship with Him and the church body, you and me! Let the desire of your heart be to serve the Lord with everything that He gives you and you will be blessed beyond all expectations.
Go! Be the church…
Pastor Dale