I grew up in a home with a lot of pain and hardship. I clung to storybooks, music, drawing, writing and praying to keep me believing things would turn around, miracles would happen and I would be like any other kid I admired, living in a house with happy parents and contented children. And great peace. It never came to be. My parents divorced when I was almost 14 and for years. Disappointed and devastated, I saturated my shattered dreams and hopes with friends, popularity, work, music, being the center of making people laugh and unhealthy relationships with boys. I gave up on praying and peace. I just wanted to feel good now. Storybooks, art and praying were things of the past. I found my own ways to deaden the pain and answer my own prayers. But it didn't work for long. I soon became empty, bitter and the holes in my heart grew bigger. Nothing and no one could really fill those sore spots. Thats another story of all the ways, places and people I used to medicate and mend. Today, as I read this old familiar text, most people know and use around this time of the year for graduations etc., it continues to rings true for me. God does have good thoughts toward me. For good. Not evil. I rely on promises like this while I am still mending, healing, and dealing with fear and worry. I am a scaredy cat by nature. I have never been very brave. I expect the worst even when I wish for the best. I have found God has better ways to give me peace and fill these large holes and scars in my heart. I am learning to take Him at His Word too, which is powerful, alive and true. I surrender my holes to Him. This promise is for everyone. Good, not evil, are God's intentions for us. "For I know the thought that I think towards you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil..." Jeremiah 29
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I can't tell you how many plants I've killed, or how many times I moved my poor plants around the yard, rearranging and driving my family crazy sometimes... often, but gardening is healing and an art I seem to need to do. I have been digging and planting ever since I was a toddler at 5 years, begging to plant something in the back of our apartment building and then again when my parents bought our first house when I was 9 years old. Both of those requests and plans to plant didn't go so well. I learned plants need a lot more care, water and sunshine and good dirt and nutrition. I also needed a place of my own to plant. When I was 25 years old, I fell in love with a man who had an old house and and old yard, and I have been digging and planting it with him when we first got married and then with our two sons, and most often, the next 23 years by myself. It was one of my passions and I was full determination with my gardening books in tow. Sometimes, maybe often, I created a bit of chaos and concern and sometimes exasperation from others, as I blocked sprinkler heads and planted roses where the thorns could snag you, and I whined for more space and places to grow. Like the rest of my life, gardening reveals my heart and mind. Wanting to cram as many wonderful things and happenings into a space. Never really content to let things be. Always thinking of another wild idea. Sometimes failing, forgetting, taking on more than I can handle. Not wanting to leave a plant out, believing there's always room. Determined. Persistent. Stubborn. I believe somehow it can work out. I hope. I fail. Things sometimes work out and sometime things just don't. So today I am grateful for this time of year, when everything is bright green and fresh. New flowers and colors are clear and lovely. As I garden, this form of art does healing things in my heart. I think, daydream and recall old memories. I grieve and pray deep sorrows. Heartaches that sometimes fester get worked out in the dirt. Happy and grateful feelings too. Content by the way some of my life has gone and decisions I have made. Daydreaming of better days. Outside there in this therapy I do all these things. Covered in dirt and water. This is an art I seem to need to do... Last evening I picked up this painting called, "She sang out loud..." and some other paintings I had taken to be reprinted and scanned. I painted "She sings out Loud" with feelings and thoughts about beautiful people who struggle in this world. Those who are hard pressed. Not always living a easy life. Often pressed on every side. About those who are touched deeply by sin's hard blows, but still walk tall, their heads in the clouds, singing out loud. They make the days brighter wherever they go. Creative, strong, imaginative, beautiful, powerful and brave. Even when they are cast down, they are not destroyed. They rise up. They sing again. I believe this is how Katelyn Luce Wilson was. I didn't know her. But I feel I knew her somehow through her parent's and other's testimonies. I read her words, watched her faith and witnessed her clinging onto Jesus. I saw photos of her loving and holding her little daughter. I saw she was surrounded by many who greatly loved her. She was a new young mom. A passionate, brilliant, loving, young, spiritual warrior taken so soon. Leaving family and friends to grieve. Around the same time Katelyn died, so did another vibrant young lady, Maddy, and a strong, young man,Fisher, then my brother-in-law, Tag. I was shocked and saddened. Their voices silenced by death. Their loved ones left, crushed by pain. So on this Mother's Day, this painting was given to Katelyn Luce Wilson's mama. A mama left to sing where Katelyn left off. She grieves, but I bet she lifts up her head to Heaven, praying for a song to sing as she longs for her girl. A song for Jesus to please come soon. I think it is hard to sing when your heart is broken, so with this loving, grieving mother, we join to sing with her, and soon the angels will sing with her too when Jesus comes again. When He will breathe new life and new songs into her, and into all the others, who have been sleeping as well. The crying will be turned to laughter. All the mourning will turn to joyful singing out loud. Forever. My mom goes about her days mending, hosting big meals for family, sewing, cooking, baking, weeding, ironing, cleaning, planting and tending her plants,flowers and roses, and she says she isn't artistic or creative. I so disagree with her! She is very artistic. What she is and does are very creative, artistic skills and today, if her Mama, my Grandma Amelia were alive, and she'd be doing these amazing, beautiful, creative things along with her. What a treat that would be!
I don't like when people are so quick to dismiss their gifts of creativity and artistic expression. What makes only drawing, painting, acting etc. art? Who makes the rules what art is? What would the world be without other sorts of art? There are so many forms of art! I know my son gets frustrated when I down play, apologize and discredit the art I do. It is hurtful as it blows out a candle of my spirit and hurts others who believe and value me. And what does that say about other's compliments, their opinions and their own art if I am dismissing mine and/or I am ashamed of it? I need to remember the frustration and hurt I feel when my mom discredits her art. I need to learn to be gracious and say thank you more. And allow others to appreciate and value my art. I have to work on valuing my form of art. Even if others hate it I hope you value your art. It might be the way you arrange your furniture and paint your walls. How you set your table and do your hair. It might be how you dress and the way you sing. It might be the work you do and the way you write, talk and live. Art is all over your life. Thank you for your art! Today I moved into my new office space. I was dreading hauling and moving. I called my big little sister asking for her expert help. She drove the distance and was there with hammer, pencils, supplies, and paint, in case we had time to create some art together afterwards. Sadly, we did not have time to paint, but we ate outside together with our Dad for a nice break. My dad is another cheerleader in my life too. My sister Te' is an amazing artist, designer and intuitive with space, color and flow of movement. I was blessed she was there. She's not just my sister, she's my friend. She laughs at almost everything I say and all the wacky faces I make, like I am some great comedian, which of course, I am not. It feels good though, to have such a loving fan. She gets my sensitive nature and impulsive ideas. She gets my half sentences of multi-topics. I was ready to break down a bit, but she kept me smiling and encouraging me to keep shining. I felt grateful and greatly loved. This song represent what I felt today. I love this old song. They use to play it a million times a day till I could hardly stand it, but today, it was a tender sentimental reminder from my sister Te', to keep smiling, keep shining.Thank you, my dear sister, Te',I could count on you! So much help and blessing to me! Maybe you have a cheerleader like this in your life too. Someone who raises their pom- poms wildly in honor of you! A supportive fan. Someone who is there in good and bad times. Someone who drives the distance physically or emotionally for you. May we be this for others too! A young man took his life and tonight the family has invited the community to come celebrate his life. He was a nature lover. He was sensitive. He was an artist. He was only 19 years old. I am leaving soon to attend this celebration of life and my heart is heavy. I don't feel like celebrating. I feel like crying and I will. I think of my own two sons and how I would feel if they were not on this Earth. I can't imagine. They mean everything to me. We are like flowers. Here today and gone, maybe not tomorrow, but we don't know how long we are really here. We are are fragile and sometimes walking on thin ice. A young artist's life is resting till His creator wakes him one glorious day, like a bright and blossoming flower. I originally called this painting "Silent Farewells to Spring". I renamed it this week, "Farewell to Theron." Farewell, dear young Theron. I look forward to meeting you and seeing your art in Heaven someday. Maybe you have tulips growing in your yard too. They are one of Spring's great miracles to me. When months of cold, dark, long winter days seem to have taken every last hope of life, these amazing flowers push through the dark earth and stand tall and glorious.
They give me hope for our life too. I painted this over 20 years ago. My sons were little tiny boys then. They were born a year apart. I was honored and awed to have these little people and be their mom. It was a good hard work! And a precious work I had no idea how to do so often! This painting reflects the feelings I had of contentment, reflection, overwhelm and exhaustion as a new wife, artist, and mother. Floundering, failing ,sometimes succeeding and grateful- all at the same time.
Tonight I notice, while looking at this painting again, the little person up against a big door. The tiny person is me. How I feel anyway, as I am not really tiny physically. I just feel tiny often now. Feeling I am up a against a big closed door. My sons are no longer tiny. They are grown. I don't have the same exhaustion of a new mom and wife. I have different reflections and exhaustion now. I feel overwhelmed over other things. I am thinking, and praying... I remember one of my favorite texts. It was illustrated through a painting on my very first Bible as a child. A painting of Jesus leaning and knocking on a big wooden door. I was so touched by our Heavenly Father gently knocking at the door of my heart. Touched He would take time to do that for me. A small nobody. A insignificant, bewildered, feeling child. I remember clinging to that little Bible because of the cover painting. Holding it tight against my chest. I had no idea what the inside was saying, as it was hard to read the old King James version. But I later came to understand the tender painting's sweet meaning. It was for everyone, within those delicate, gold- edged pages. I continued to find the whole Bible, kept repeating this beautiful earnest theme and patient invitation from a non-coercive God. Who doesn't barge in. Who doesn't come in without invitation. Who doesn't push His way. He is patient. He lets us turn the knob and open the door. But He knocks. He wants to come in and be with us. Perhaps you had a little Bible with this painting on it too. If not, I hope you can visualize it and feel it in your heart. And know it for yourself that Jesus is knocking. And I am sure many of you do. "Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me." Revelation 3:20 I pray for strength, courage and desire to open the door and let Him come in every time He knocks. |
Brenda Trapani
Artist & Storyteller "The grass fadeth and the flower, but the word of our God shall stand forever." -Isaiah 40:8
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November 2017
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