Sunday’s ART of Truth – Worthy – 8/23/20
Hello friends,. I had fully intended to record the whole process for my YouTube channel. Honestly, it got so deep and had so many lives, I had to stop and continue working on it in privacy. But, I do want to take a moment and give you the path that this piece of art took. It was an old canvas that I had tried to make something on. I didn’t like it. I stuck it into the back of the closet and forgot about it. I pulled it out recently and wondered if it was time to give it a second life. So, I covered the whole thing with collage papers. Added paint and stenciling and all my usual things. I hated it! I mean hated it. So I gave it a coat of black gesso (basically black paint) Let it dry overnight. I could not get past the blackness of the surface and struggled looking at it throughout the day. Before bed, I gave it a coat of white gesso ( basically white paint) It had all this texture created with pebbles, art stones or little pebbles, cheesecloth and drywall tape. I had used glass bead gel and crackle paint. So under the black gesso and then under the white gesso, the story and the words unfolded.
How much is that canvas like our lives? Our stories and our pains are that texture, hard lines, cracked hearts, dried up dreams…all the things that I struggle with. But, it is also hope. It is color. It is touched with gold. I didn’t know the canvas was telling a story until I woke up to the white canvas with all the highs and lows of all that texture. Then, I knew exactly what to do. The cross. Worthy.
So, I hope you will check out the photos at the end 😊
I named this piece, “Worthy”…hence the depth of thought and emotion. This piece has been on my heart for quite some time. But, recently stirred up like a whirlwind around many things and circumstances.
I started reading a book recently and in the prologue itself, I found a tidbit that I have not been able to let go of…this piece was birthed from that tidbit. The book is entitled The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller. This is what the author wrote. “There are places within us that have been wrapped in shame and banished to the farthest shores of our lives…we cannot grieve for something that we feel is outside the circle of worth.” I haven’t read far enough yet to get the context for that excerpt but I know that it was like an arrow to my heart. Poignant, powerful and true.
We as humans born into this broken world all suffer shame. We also suffer pain. We all have grief. Some grew up in good homes where parents did their very best to tend to our hearts and our spirits. But, even in those homes- there is pain. There is shame & grief. In a home where the parents did not know how to love and nurture themselves did not have what they most needed, to give these things to their children. In a home where abuse is the norm, the breeding ground for self-contempt, shame, pain, grief etc. is all encompassing and virtually impenetrable. All of us fit into at least one of those homes.
While I make no excuse for abuse, it is part of the human condition to be affected and infected with these human emotions and struggles.
I don’t know about you but I know these things all too well. I have spent more than half my years on this earth taking back what was stolen from me. All that was broken within and what had left me scarred. In these 30 years, I have walked through the trenches of memory…in body, mind and heart. I had found myself broken all along the way and watched Jesus put me back together. I could cry about the things that happened to me and the things that I lost. I could cry over losing parents and family and friends because of my truth and standing up for it. I could cry about what I needed and didn’t get. But, nothing, nothing has touched the ‘worthiness’. It is one thing to be sad because my innocence was stolen, but I have never grieved over the ‘worthy’ part of that. I hope I can explain.
As children, no matter who you are, who we are, who we were and where we’ve been…WE ARE
Worthy of love
Worthy of being safe
Worthy of being held
Worthy of being heard
Worthy of just BEING
Worthy of living without fear…the list seems endless
I could grieve over how I felt when my stepfather molested me, but only because of the act. Only because it was wrong…not because I was worthy enough to NOT be abused. He was one of many.
Our worth is not dependent on what we do or don’t do. It is not dependent on how we perform. Or the color of our skin, our eyes, our body size, or our intellect. It’s not dependent on the job we do or the paycheck that we bring home or how good or bad we did in school. It wasn’t dependent on what we wore or how we carried ourselves.
Our worth from God’s perspective is that we are WORTHY. Period. Because, we exist. Because, He loves us. Because, we are created in His image…
But, how do we wrestle with that? How do we heal that?
As I have processed this excerpt and the heftiness of the message, I have to ask God what the truth is about me.
Often the conversations go, “because I love you…(Him)”
“But…(me)”
“because you are precious…(Him)”
“But…(me)”
We go round and round. I know that God doesn’t lie. He is my source. He is trustworthy. “But…”
It goes beyond salvation and getting to heaven and going to church. It goes to the very center of who we are.
“We cannot grieve for something that we feel is outside the circle of worth.”
What I take away from that is that in order to really grieve, to really release all that poison, I must contend with my worth.
To embrace the grief, we must embrace the truth that because we are worthy, we have a right to grieve. Even as I sit here writing this, it spins around and around in my head. It is so huge, this concept. If we don’t feel worthy, we won’t be able to grieve the profound losses that we have experienced. For many, those experiences are stacked.
We can grieve because we were/are worthy enough to be grieved over. I can grieve the molestations (and everything else), not just because they were wrong but because I was worthy to BE LOVED. To grasp that feels like winning the lottery (not that I have grasped it 😊)
I know this is pretty heavy and thick stuff, but it is important.
My friends, I write from my walk of faith with Jesus, but I know that is not where everyone is coming from and that’s ok. Wherever you are, whatever your belief system is, there is rich truth to be found here. YOU, my friends, are worthy. You are worthy because you are loved. You are worthy because you are seen. You are worthy because you exist. You were born. With a purpose. Grab a hold of that worth. Tuck it deep inside of you. Take it out when you encounter something difficult and soul-piercing. Tell yourself the truth, you are worth so much more than you can comprehend. So am I. I am still wrestling…
Until next time,
Beloved-Reborn
