Happy Sunday friends & family,
I wanted to share a particularly intense Sunday’s ART of Truth with you. The feelings and issues around “not being enough” are enormous, always encroaching & seemingly multiplying.
I wanted to share a story with you about these 3 art journal pages I created at the end of September…
There is an artist that I have been following on her website/blog as well as YouTube. Her name is Shawn Petite. I love her art and her heart. The art is amazing, no doubt, but bigger than that is the story that she shares at the end of her Sunday Inspiration videos. She is beautifully transparent and full of grace. She extended an invitation for her 2019/2020 Creative Team. I applied. I did not think I would be selected. Not because my art is lousy but because of how I see myself, my value, my struggle with ‘being me 100%’ of the time.
I was accepted to be a part of the team. I was so surprised, honored, blessed & then overwhelmed.
I sell my art. I teach workshops but it is still in my little corner of the world. I suddenly became disconnected from myself. Trying to manufacture art that was not me. I wanted it to ‘look’ like what I saw others creating. I tried project after project and each one was a bomb. I cried. I got angry and then I got quiet. I talked to Jesus about what this was about. Why can’t I create beautiful art? why is everything such a mess? gently, over the course of many days, we started talking about the “why”.
You see, my friends, we are all unique. We all have gifts and stories that are unique to us. That is what makes such a beautiful world and it is what makes each of us beautiful just as we are.
As I was wrestling with this, a picture with a quote came up on my Facebook feed. It said :”Actually, you are enough”. It was the actually that caught my attention.
Actually- ‘as the truth or facts of a situation; really.’
It is the truth. This is not to say that we don’t need to grow, learn and stretch. It isn’t an excuse to live at the status quo. It is not a license to be complacent. It is…hope. It is…faith. It is…growth, many times painful.
We don’t have to be someone else. We don’t have to mimic anyone else’s traits, strengths or gifts. We do ourselves a great undoing when we allow ourselves to be measured by anyone else. I have often heard it said that, ” I just want to be a better me than I was yesterday”. While there is truth to that, it is also a bit of a trap. We will fall short. We will disappoint ourselves and others. You see, our own measuring stick changes in length and importance based on what is going on, what hurts us & what our buttons are. If our heart is wounded, we begin measuring ourselves and others out of that wounded-ness. It seems impossible to ‘clean up our act’ or ‘get it right’. Sometimes, it feels like there is no win. But I challenge that- the WIN is returning to our heart. Returning to our souls. Returning to our God. I turn to Jesus. He is my source. He is my measure. He is my grace. This is not to say that we are not responsible for what we do in our wounded-ness, but it does give us a place to go home, load up on the truth and then set out again to be a better human. Not to measure up, but to be at peace.
Many days, I am not such a great human. I have blind spots. I have buttons that get pushed and I am responsible to address those things in my heart.
But to live in the truth of “actually, you are enough”…what freedom. It allows us to be who we were created to be with heart and soul engaged, resting in the truth of “enough”.
Once I allowed my soul to be touched with this truth many weeks ago, it allowed me to return to my best creative self. Me. Not anyone else. I sat in my studio and longed for a way to express this truth. Often, when I am feeling inspired but I have no idea what I am going to create, I just begin rifling through my studio and ALWAYS find the perfect thing. You see, when we go back home to our heart, we can then live and create out of it.
Some elements in these art journal pages are pretty straightforward but there are other things that no one knows but.me. There are words on one page that say Tru You, that was simply a clothing tag in my stash. The page that has the vintage pattern lady on it had some numbers penciled on it. This is scraobook paper and so these numbers were part of the paper, not something I wrote on the paper. It says “5 – 10”. Friends, that is my birth date. I was excited about that. I was born on May 10, 1965. I am a designer original. My pattern cannot be replicated.
The same is true for you sweet one…YOU are a designer original. You cannot be replicated. God made one and one only. And, He is ecstatic about His creation. All around us, our world screams that we must produce. We must have the best, be the best, act the best. And, in that, we often forget who we are. I challenge you, when ‘not enough’ starts knocking- get in your quiet place inside and rest. Listen to what the truth is. You are beautiful. You are uninque. You are “Tru You”.
Blessings my friends,
Actually, you are enough!
Beloved- Reborn
