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  After 3 years of vigorous study at the American Academy of Art in Chicagoand a one year apprenticeship at a large production house in the heart of the Loop, Tom began his career in 1980. Trained in the essentials of Life Drawing, Illustration & Design and Painting the list of some of the clients Tom has worked for include Quaker Oats, General Mills, Betty Crocker,  Celestial Seasonings, Smuckers, Gatorade, Alpo, Gillette, McDonalds, Sega Genesis, Game Boy, Nintendo, Enesco (Precious Moments), The Bradford Exchange (Collectables) and Disney Studios. Now Tom does editorial illustrations for the GOOD NEWS Christian Journal and a number of his images are available at Concordia Publishing House. He also began TRIUNE Art which is a company that develops and produces Fine Art products, using profits from sales to help Christian organizations like GOOD NEWS spread the Gospel.
Christian to the core! by Tom duBois
 Ask any illustrator and they’ll agree; Illustration is probably one of the most difficult careers a person can choose! And after years of working through the night to meet deadlines, struggling to solve visual problems, and just developing the necessary skills to do the task, still nothing was ever more difficult than this new assignment I was about to tackle.
When I was diagnosed with Colorectal Cancer in July 2007 I had no idea what I was going to do. After a colonoscopy procedure located a large tumor, the team of doctors on my case showed great concern due to its size and location. Never needing any significant medical care before and a relatively new migrant to the Houston community I was in very unfamiliar territory. And as soon as my family back home caught wind of my illness, an outpouring of prayers and well wishes came my way. First to arrive were stacks of Mass cards, then a friend sent an anointed prayer cloth by some self-proclaimed healer, books on the power of the Rosary & Marianist practices, information on alternative medicines and the miraculous curing power of exotic plants, a set of CD’s teaching me how to a achieve a special healing faith, even a three hour long Healing Mass was attended on my behalf, which is a Benny Hinn type of event with a Charismatic Roman Catholics.
I have to say it truly is beyond my ability to express how grateful I am to all my loved ones and friends who extended such thoughtfulness to me. But for the past several years, I have been schooled in historic Christian doctrine by some of the most learned theologians and pastors in the world. And God’s Word very clearly defines how the Christian should live in the midst of suffering. The true Christian confesses to the God who comes down to cling to the cross we bear to unite us to His. And this has absolutely nothing to do with the human effort we find in a Mass card or learning how to master a healing faith or anything human reason can devise to help us cope with a serious illness. We trust fully and completely in the divine wisdom for which we pray Thy will be done. And whether God sees fit to work through His chosen instruments to heal us on this side of heaven from our afflictions, or whether He waits to heal us on the last day when we are raised in glory, either way we can rest assured the promise of the Great Physician will indeed deliver us from all our mourning and cries of pain. And in every trial we embrace the divine test that will prove our faith is genuine, tempering and preparing our souls for eternal life with God.
“Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love Him” (James 1:12).
Once news got out to my Church family, my ignorance of the situation I was in was quickly remedied. I was soon informed to the best doctors in Houston who treated this particular type of cancer. And it was arranged that I could get to see them quickly. Having the same treatments and surgery two years prior and still facing challenges in his recovery, the very same illness happened to be experienced by a fellow Church member, Gerald Tackett. A prominent and highly respected architect in Houston, he graciously took time out of his extremely busy schedule to patiently walk me through the entire process. Since he and his lovely wife Janice lived so close to the Medical Center where I needed to make regular visits they insisted I stay and be a guest in the beautiful home Gerald designed and built with his son Steven. Since my mother was having hip replacement surgery the same day my surgery was scheduled, to their great disappointment it was impossible for them to come to Texas from Chicago to lend support. So Gerald and Janice took me in as if I was one of their own. And while Gerald tended to his business during the day, Janice was constantly there for me. Whether it be at the hospital every day to tend to all my needs, rushing me in to the ER on a cold Saturday morning after a complication from surgery, cleaning me up after getting sick all over myself, washing me thoroughly in the shower, painstakingly preparing a meal I could only stomach one bite of, offering to help me pay my bills that were rapidly accumulating, even raking the leaves in my back yard! Just a blatant display of selflessness & sacrifice this couple in their 70’s freely gave to this fallen sparrow they hardly even knew but for a couple years!
And the loving care did not stop there! Other Church members came to my aid as well. After joining Memorial Lutheran Church (LCMS) in 2003 I soon learned of the rich and abundant blessings God provided in this Orthodox Church with its historical biblical liturgy. (Rev. Dr. Scott Murray, Rev. J. Bart Day) But I was unaware at the time just how precious the fruit of the extended blessings would be. Besides the treasure of Word & Sacrament in the Divine Service, His faithful children lovingly came to serve their neighbor in need. This came in regular visits by the pastors at home and the hospital to pray, give devotions and administer the Sacrament, and a Missions pastor from Nigeria (Rev. Charles Wokoma) spent three hours one day with me in the ICU singing hymns to me in his native language. For eight days with tubes coming out of me in three different places I was in absolute agony and not allowed to drink any fluids. So my dear friend Myron poured bucket after bucket of ice water over my head from a plastic tub on my bed. Hard to believe from someone who hates cold that this was one of the most refreshing experiences I ever had! As a voice teacher and a professional musician he travels and sings all over the world. How wonderful it was to hear him take time out to come and sing me my favorite hymns! Also, food was prepared, supplies procured, and an exquisite blanket was knitted, and all this by Church members I never even met. Another good friend, David Wohlrab (Bethany Lutheran Church, Naperville IL LCMS) would constantly pray with me by phone and compose wonderful prayers for me in e-mails. He also sent prayer requests to neighboring congregations who would diligently pray for me as well. My biggest surprise came on Thanksgiving Day. A day I planned spending alone while Janice & Gerald went to their children’s house for dinner because I was still too sick to join them. A few minutes before they left, Rev. Dr. Wallace Schulz walks up to the door! He is the Executive Editor of GOOD NEWS. He came to Houston all the way from St. Louis to visit, encourage and have fellowship with me. And to think I only met this gentleman once at a LCMS convention in Houston this past summer!
Here is CHRIST coming down fully present in every one of these righteous acts to serve the neighbor! Working through His chosen instrumentality, just like he worked through the entire medical team to make me well again. Molding me now into His chosen instrument disciplined into a discipleship where He will begin His work through me. Surely in the sovereignty of the Father there is not only treasure in the easy living He grants but also in the most difficult. Because we know He plans everything for those who love Him. How does one possibly fathom the magnificent treasure of the cross if it were given to us without suffering and affliction of our own? Like Luther put it; “This would make us snore in our security!” Through the cross God has thoroughly secured me. Disciplining me so my faith will increase and grow stronger, thus drawing the Savior all the deeper into my soul. Teaching me the essence of suffering.
Again Luther puts it best;
“Therefore it is better that we should be given a cross than that we should be spared a cross, no man must falter and take fright at it. Have you not a good strong promise wherein to take comfort! Nor can the Gospel advance except through us as we suffer willingly and bear our cross.”
In the 16th century my forefathers fled from northern France into Holland to pursue religious freedom from Roman oppression. Roman Catholic rulers with blessings from the pope brutally massacred thousands and thousands of innocent men woman & children simply because they were French Protestants largely influenced by the tracts of Martin Luther protesting against the Gospel abuses of the Roman Catholic Church still abused to this very day.
Every true artist will tell you. We spend our entire lives not seeking an enlightened creative path, but simply training our eyes TO SEE. And the picture painted by the Roman Church doctrine I was raised in could not be any clearer. In it’s Pharisee-like piety and human contrived oral traditions, Jesus and the comfort the Gospel gets too overworked and muddy. I went through that religion class for 12 years and everything I was taught depended on the use of my own efforts to give me the assurance and hope one needs when experiencing extreme challenges. (Penance, saying the Rosary, the Mass, etc.). But I suppose at least something is better than nothing, which is all I had in my atheist/evolutionist period. Even my very brief Osteen/Lakewood experience would have left me nowhere but in despair had I took his silly candy-coated sermons to heart. Today, after experiencing four major surgical procedures in the month of November 2007 and still facing the difficult challenges one faces in recovery of Colorectal cancer, I can see all this as nothing other than a precious heaven sent gift. Enriching me in ways no one else could possibly understand unless they are steeped in the only true religion brought to humankind directly from Almighty God.
Since the Holy Spirit instilled my faith 14 days after I was born September 15th, 1957, I praise God daily for never leaving me all those years in my spiritual ball of confusion. And ever since the God of gods, light of lights found this lost sheep and pulled me out of the darkness, my faith has become so deeply rooted in Christ and the cross I can see it now in my very name.
In French duBois means of the woods. My mother’s parents migrated to the US in 1940 from Voltutura Appula in southern Italy. Their name is Montagano which means mountain in Italian. So from the wood of the ark that saved the eight from the flood waters ~ symbolizing the Baptism that now saves me ~ to the wood of the cross that exclusively saves all the Holy Spirit leads to repent and believe by grace alone, through faith alone, for the sake of Jesus Christ alone ~ Here I stand high a top the rock solid mountain of TRUTH ~ singing Alleluias that I AM LUTHERAN and CHRISTIAN TO THE CORE!
LOVE ~ GRACE ~ MERCY & CONCORD
in our crucified and risen Lord and Savior ~ Jesus Christ
Tom duBois
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