Ramblings of a Creative Soul
Portraits
When life dealt me a terrible blow, the preciousness of existence was torn from my life, leaving me tattered in pieces, I felt lost and unsure. Chaos overwhelmed even my most simple decision. The journey to wholeness was but a distant dream. Yet even at my lowest point, the journey plodded on, sometimes against my will and sometimes without my even knowing it. So, how do I find wholeness? Completeness? Again? How do I start over yet again to find a new sense of normal, when normal is just as much of an illusion as control? Especially when I look back at what seems to be such a disjointed life, full of stops, turns, failures, victories, roller coaster rides and re-starts.
As I look at the portrait of the stunning 20 year old girl that I used to be (too bad she was too insecure to realize that she was pretty), I don’t feel connected to her at all. She is a beautiful enigma that I don’t understand. She was consumed with herself, her drama, her plight, her career…thinking she alone could “fix it”…whatever “it” happened to be at the moment. Why couldn’t she see the bigger picture? The great martyr that didn’t seem to notice the everyday suffering of others all around her. I stare into her eyes and have pity on her for what she missed and compassion on her for what she will go through. Her world was rocked by the divorce of her parents and the destruction of what she thought of as her home. The rocky road of re-defining her sense of family and finding her own path began the tumultuous journey that shapes all of our lives in the real world. She is the beginning, the place where the labyrinth of wisdom starts.
Then I see the portrait of her in her 30’s, bone weary in a wonderful and joyous way. Overwhelmed, yet always exuberant with the fullness of life. No longer the career woman, but transformed by the love of a child. Motherhood, completes her new sense of family. She is wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend, volunteer. Her every waking hour is consumed with taking care of others, especially her husband and child…her blessings overflow…her second chance. God’s grace is a mighty and awesome treasure. (Though, juggling everyone else’s needs, while ignoring your own comes with a price tag and is not a great way to show gratitude.) But, she feels fulfilled, loved and so very, very blessed. Children teach us so many things, but always they show us how to step outside of ourselves. They change the landscape of our lives and the perception of our thoughts. As I stare into her eyes, I am thankful for her wisdom to learn from her mistakes, to speak honestly about her failures and her flexibility to grow where the sunlight shines.
And then we come to her 40’s. Her 40’s have so few photographs, but the portrait that captures her essence is the very presence of grief. To watch someone who is closer to her than breathing, wither and die consumes her very soul, until nothing is left, only hollowness. Cancer leaves its dirty little fingerprints on some of her loved ones, while stealing away so many others, including her husband and soul mate, David, her grandmother, her cousin, and her uncle. Lonely and sad can’t begin to describe the emptiness of the loss of her husband. There is a David sized hole in her very being. Destitution…emotional…spiritual…mental destitution comes close. To be rent in half after the agonizing battle between and hope and fear leaves her broken and scarred. For 2 years, she sits in shell-shocked stillness, letting life flow by with no notice, waiting for time and nature to heal. The gentle lap of the water on the lake shore, the melodious song of the tiny wren that sings every morning, the breath taking sunrise over the lake…they are salve to her wounded soul. If I could look into her eyes without turning away, I would see an ocean of sorrow.
Happiness, like control is also an illusion. Happiness does not exist when you seek it as an end result, something that can be handled and controlled. You see happiness is simply a symptom of a much greater principle of life. And, that principle is joy. Joy is that intangible, unexplainable thing in life. You can’t see it, touch it, taste it, but it flavors everything about you. It is what creates the buoyancy in life. Struggle, pain, even people may drag you down (or even put a hole in the bottom of your boat), but joy is what helps you bob back up to the top, like that little red and white ball on a fishing line. The fish might drag the line under, but the bobber brings it back to the surface. Joy is as crucial in life as breathing but mostly overlooked. It isn’t celebrated in fairy tales like “happily ever after”.
There are two main principles of joy. The first is grace, more specifically forgiveness for yourself. The decisions you’ve made, the thoughts you’ve had and possibly acted on, the people you’ve hurt. An acceptance of all of your past mistakes and the grace to forgive yourself, even though you don’t deserve it and possibly no one else will ever forgive you either. This is not forgiveness from anyone else, not even those you’ve hurt. They may never forgive you, but that is between them and God. I’m not saying to not apologize, I’m saying you must fully grasp God’s all-encompassing grace that He loved you even when you were at your worst and He is big enough to cover you. When you truly grab ahold of just how big that is and you’ve wallowed in it like a pig in the mud thoroughly enjoying a rainy day, then the wrongs you have suffered at the hands of other becomes so much smaller. That grace for the others in your life, becomes much simpler. Not easy by any stretch, just doable, realizing grace is journey, not a destination, each day breaking anew.
The second is gratitude. Gratitude for life, for blessings, for trials, for people. Gratitude is something you have to practice. It doesn’t come naturally to many. Even on my worst day. The day that my husband lost his battle to cancer, I found practicing gratitude helped. I will admit that it took me a very long time to come up with that first thing that I was grateful for…but as I sat in my sorrow and loss, I realized that I was grateful that David was no longer in pain. Then, I felt the warm sun on my skin and I was grateful for sunshine. Little by little, I found my list that day. Practicing gratitude is not trying to whitewash anyone’s agony or troubles for everyone has those on almost any given day. I know I do. Practicing gratitude is what helps me not to cycle down into depression. It helps me to concentrate on the good things in life and count my many blessings.
When I live with grace and practice gratitude, I find that happiness is the symptom that overflows my life. It is a by-product, not a destination. Joy does not erase grief, nor does it undo the scars left behind by love and loss. Instead, it quietly weaves itself through the broken places, reminding me that even shattered things can still hold beauty, purpose, and hope. Wholeness, I have learned, is not becoming who I once was, but having the courage to embrace who I am now…scarred, grateful, growing, and still deeply alive.