Artist.
“Today the spiritual in art continues to confront us with what we have forgotten. It shows us our deepest self and asks the deepest questions, inviting us to partake fully of the spiritual truths we often ignore or obscure with the veneer of the false self.”
When I was little it seems like all I did was use my imagination. I quickly became in love with drawing. I would draw, color, paint, sketch, and trace. When asked what my favorite class was in school I would quickly answer “art.” However, I was incredibly insecure in my talents.
The other love in my life growing up was sports. I grew up with three older brothers and was quite the little tomboy. School organized sports teams started in fifth grade and I soon found out that I was rather good at volleyball. I remember going to a volleyball clinic the summer before my eighth grade year at a local high school. The coach was well known and his high school team was very good. He affirmed me and saw potential in me.
You may be able to see where this is going, but maybe not. When high school hit the demands of academics and practices increased. Since someone other than my peers had affirmed me in my athletic ability I allowed artistic expression to take the back burner. This continued for at least the next nine years. A lot happened in those nine years to contribute to my personal development and spiritual growth. So, when I came to seminary in 2008 I thought I knew who I was.
However, something was missing. I didn’t know it, but God did. The next year was one of refining. It felt as if God had stripped my to my bones, I no longer felt like I knew who I was or what I was doing at seminary. In what I perceived as a mess God was working to build up an identity based on his design instead of the one I had constructed over the years based on human praise. In his beautiful design of me, God had bestowed upon me a love and talent for art, and since I had found no praise in it early on I had deemed it an unworthy part of my person.
During this identity crisis I clearly felt one thing from God. Art is a part of me. So, slowly I began the process of finding God’s voice through creating. God has created us unique and has built into each of us specific talents and personality quirks that reveal Himself to those around us. It was never about me or my proficiency. It is about being a vessel used for his purposes. The artistic nature of my identity is something that God purposefully created in me so that he could use it.
Up until six months ago I never would have called myself an artist. I am not a professional nor do I think I am meant to try to make a profession out of my talents. However, God is showing me how he desires to use the identity he has given me to not only add to my spiritual formation, but to add to the formation of others.
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Hands of Surrender
These hands were created out of my journey of growth in trusting God fully. At the time of the fist I was grasping to keep control of certain areas of my life, because deep down in my heart I doubted God’s love. As I struggled through these doubts (which were hard for me to admit that I had, being a life long Christian and now at seminary) I drew the releasing hand. I was not to a place of trusting, but I was willing for the Lord to bring me to a place of willingness. Through months of work and God’s incredible grace I came to a place of open hands releasing my fears and doubts and finding rest in his love and goodness. I cannot say that I stay in this place of openness, but I have found it incredible to have these images to constantly remind myself of where my trust lies. Is it in my own abilities or is it in God?
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Sometimes it still takes me by surprise when I see my drawings framed and hung on a wall!
grace and peace.
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