A Final Painting

It's been one of those weeks for me.  You know the kind.  The kind where everything seems to be wrong or off or unobtainable.  Some of this has to do with crazy pregnancy hormones and some of it has to do with entirely too many things in my life that are out of my control.  I'd be kidding myself if I ever even attempted to say that I don't like to be in control, or at the very least have a plan.  But this has been one of those weeks where no amount of planning would have paid off.  This week has been filled with frustrations, anxiety, fears, lack of motivation and all kind of other fun emotions that when experienced one at a time are completely manageable but when experienced all together lead to a night of crying and wishing I could just drink a glass of wine.  And so with all of this I kept putting off my time with God and painting in order to get something, anything, crossed off my entirely too long to do list.  As Saturday approached Frank asked if we were going to paint (as I had asked him if he'd paint with me so that I could "practice" leading someone else through this process). 

So Saturday rolled around and I had a painting date with my husband and I couldn't put it off any longer.  As we got paints, brushes and canvas set out my heart still wasn't in it and when Frank asked how we do this I explained my usual process of picking Psalm, sitting with it and then painting my prayer and this of course led him to ask what Psalm we were using today.  I told him to pick one while I tried to get out of my blah mood and into the "creative" frame of mind.  He picked Psalm 67 which says,

"God, mark us with grace and blessing!  Smile!  The whole country will see how you work, all the godless nations see how you save.  God!  Let people thank and enjoy you.  Let all people thank and enjoy you.  Let all far-flung people become happy and shout their happiness because you judge them fair and square, you tend the far-flung people.  God!  Let people thank and enjoy you.  Let all people thank and enjoy you.  Earth, display your exuberance!  You mark us with blessing, O God, our God.  You mark us with blessing, O God.  Earth's four corners -- honor him!" (The Message). 

So...this Psalm expresses the polar oposite of how I've been feeling.  But it also expresses how I long to feel.  Not only has it been a long week but the days are getting shorter and I more and more often feel grumpy.  I'm not sure if it's the Seasonal Affective Disorder kicking in, the pregnancy hormones, the long tireing days or some combination but I am tired of feeling irritated and grumpy, I am tired of spending my evenings complaining to my husband rather than enjoying our time together and I am tired of not feeling like myself.  I am craving this kind of praising and joy of God that the Psalmist is expressing.  And so with all these feelings I began to paint.

I began to paint blue lines, lines of chaos, anxiety, frustration, fear and pain.  Then I found myself painting with bright vibrant yellow, these words of blessing, praise, joy and presence of God streaking into life and comingling with the blue.  I finished by painting a green backdrop surrounding it all, the color of creation itself, the color of new life.  It is my plea for God to break into my world, to help me to dwell on and see all that I have to be joyful about, because it is so very much rather than just seeing the chaos.  As I look at this painting now, a day later, I see the creation story told.  God breaking into the chaos, ordering it and turning it into something new.  In a way I guess my prayer is a prayer as old as time.

This week, I didn't struggle with  feeling the need to paint something truly great or the self talk that told me it wouldn't be good.  Instead I struggled simply to get started.  I thought I needed to be in a good place, a happy place, a Bob Ross kind of place to enter into this kind of prayer and I was very wrong.  One of the biggest surprises for me this week was the simplicity and beauty of painting side by side with my husband.  I thought for sure that I would fall into negative patterns, comparing my work with his and wondering why my painting was so bad or not right.  Instead, I really enjoyed being able to look over and see him painting.  I did not compare our works or even compare them but instead just took joy in watching him create.

Even though I didn't really feel like painting, I am really glad I did.