The Process, Mistakes and Beauty

I’ve been painting lately, which is a really great thing that God is doing in me! I’m working on a mural for a friend’s daycare, and also a canvas painting another friend asked me to do… Both are taking me longer than I expected, which has actually turned out to be a great lesson in life.

Included in the mural is a border that is taking me much longer than I initially intended. I am anxious to get to the rest of the mural… which I feel is the more artistic and less technical part, which to me is more fun. As I go, however… it is very apparent that each stage is so necessary. Even though the border is monotonous and technical, it will be such a huge part of the mural when all is said and done. Life is like this at times… the things that are less exciting and more time consuming can get to hang out after a while… but are no less important and fully are still a part of who we are, and are necessary for the full picture. God is teaching me to commit and stick with the monotonous and not just look for the fun part. The fun will come, but the monotonous is necessary.

The canvas painting as well, has been a huge process for me. When I first started it, I loved it… then it came to a stage where I hated it and left it alone for days and even turned it around, so I could not see it. Eventually after some time to process, pray and gain inspiration… I picked up the brush again and realized that there were textures that began to arise in the painting that never would have been there had I not gone through the frustration of loving, hating and even being indifferent to the painting.

I am finished with it now and the beauty to be seen as an end result, all came definitely from the process of walking it through… loving it, hating it, leaving it, finding inspiration elsewhere, trusting myself to begin again, seeing the beauty in the end and knowing that each step was fully necessary in the process…

The last thing I just finished is a banner for our one year celebration at church. I had the elementary kids do the foundation for the banner… we painted on Sunday morning… and I finished it up on Monday. It was also a cool process, because I was working on it and was only half-liking it… When suddenly I made a pretty big mistake… I learned in Art school to always use my mistakes… So I made a few decisions in how to use the mistake… When all was said and done, the banner is actually beautiful because of that mistake. I didn’t really like it until I resolved the mistake. Had I not messed up, and then figured out how to work with it… the banner would not have had the final touch that today, makes me love it!! Life is this way too, I believe.

Art always teaches me more about life.

Akeelah and the Bee

Our Deepest Fear
By Marianne Williamson

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness
That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves
Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small
Does not serve the world.
There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking
So that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We are all meant to shine,
As children do.
We were born to make manifest
The glory of God that is within us.

It’s not just in some of us;
It’s in everyone.

And as we let our own light shine,
We unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we’re liberated from our own fear,
Our presence automatically liberates others.

Note: This inspiring quote is taken from Marianne Williamson’s book A Return to Love. Though often quoted as part of Nelson Mandela’s moving inaugural speech, “Our Deepest Fear” does not appear in the speech.

Slow, Purposeful Relationships

As I got in my car yesterday to go home after chatting with a few friends; I saw the most beautiful sight. There were some fall leaves on my windshield. Most blew away, but this one, little, perfectly beautiful one… stayed. I sat there and stared at it, waiting for it to blow away, but it didn’t.

I decided to let it stay there and I pulled away on my way home. I kept watching it, as it was right at my eye level, in the middle of my view. I began to think that maybe it would stay, even though I expected it to blow away.

I chose to drive more purposefully, to see how long it would stay. Then I got kind of happy that it might make it home with me. I actually slowed down to drive the speed limit (not my forte) but I now had a reason to slow down. I got home, and the beautiful fall leaf chose to stay with me… amazing, really.

I ran upstairs and got my camera (I finally went digital, Woo Hoo!!) And here it is… the young, beautiful leaf that brought a smile to my face and made me ponder the reason it was there…

It made me process further the importance of slow, purposeful relationships. I have lived all over the place and I personally thrive on change… Because of this, I tend to expect relationships to blow away after a time, instead of stick around. I’m okay with that, because it is what I am used to. But in the past year or so, I have found myself desiring those relationships to stick around.

As I wondered why this leaf, full of beauty and simplicity, captured my interest so intensely for a few moments… I smiled when I realized that God, in all His wonder and tenderness, put it there to woo me into the fact that it’s okay to want relationships to stick around, even if that’s not what I am used to. It’s never too late to learn how. Maybe I need to slow down and drive the speed limit.

Fall is a beautiful thing.

Here it is on the windshield… If you look up in the left-hand corner… there it is!! The close-up (above) is a crazy-cool picture, and here is the full view!! When I got out and took it off the windshield, I realized how lightly it was actually there… no real reason to stay, just the fact that it chose not to blow away.

relationships, beauty, purpose, life