Day 2 of 100

Well, I've done two days in a row. Woohoo!!



So far, I've been able to let myself play and have fun.



I'm already looking ahead a few weeks and imagining what it will feel like to have page after page of watercolor images that are all by me.



I can only show you a corner of today's page because it is also my submission for the weekly posting on ThursdaySweetTreat. We were to recall a favorite book from childhood and bring it to life in some way. If you are interested in seeing my whole page of play, click on this link www.thursdaysweettreat.blogspot.com, but you'll have to wait until sometime Thursday--that's when Natasha posts the week's entries. Can anyone tell from this snippet of my painting what book I'm recalling?

Gotta Bloom

My flower buddies are teaching me sooooooo much about persistence. And even more than that: about doing what God has designed me to do. No matter what.

One winter several years ago, I just got mad when our outdoor growing season stopped so soon. It's not unusual for a freak snow in September to wipe out flowers that are really still at the height of their growing. I heard news of a coming hard frost and went outside and dug up my geraniums and plopped them in a glass bowl. Honestly, I didn't hold out much hope for their successful transplanting--I'd been sorta rough and fast in my "rescue." But I'd fallen in love with their fiery red blooms and just did NOT want to see them end.

To my surprise and delight, they immediately prospered. However, over the next few years, my tending of them went seriously downhill. My personal life was unraveling, with marital separation, reconciliation, then another betrayal. Then ultimately, divorce--unwanted by me, seemingly unavoidable, like an emotional avalanche I couldn't stop nor avoid being buried by.

Every so often I'd remember these sweeties and water them. Every time I thought my neglect had killed them, they rallied. These pictures show them as they are this morning: gangly, wild, raggedy, and exuberantly blooming. Look how they turn to the light. True, only a mommy or daddy geranium (and ME!!) could call them "beautiful" in their present state. But oh, how their insistence sustains me.

Most days, I, too, feel gangly and disjointed, trying to survive despite arid conditions. But most days--no, EVERY day,--I, too, turn to the sun, to divine Love, and blossom. Not because I "choose" to, but because that is how God designed me. Hallelujah!

Day 1 of 100

A fellow blogger and artist and all-around inspiring person (Rowena/Warrior Girl) issued a challenge: create something for 100 days.

Another incredible artist (Amanda/Persistent Green, who also happens to be my daughter) told me about this challenge and lit a fire in me.

I had a zillion ideas of what I might do. That's my usual downfall: trying to do EVERYTHING I imagine doing and obviously being unable to do so and thereby "failing" before I even start. So, in addition to the joy of the project itself, I am also breaking new ground in making my commitment fairly simple: I will play with watercolors every day, in my new little playbook, and I will post what I do. The posting is critical, because before today arrived (the official starting date), I had already begun to diminish what I envisioned doing . . "it'll just be doodles . . not really art . . won't really qualify as something creative . . .blahblahblahblahblah."

So, I am posting today's play. I sat down with no conscious intention other than to swipe my favorite brush across my palette and lay same brush across the waiting page. What ended up on the page are seven shapes--seven often indicates "completeness" for me. The shapes are all distinct from each other--and the portions of my life seem pretty disjointed right now. What the shapes have in common is their vibrant color--same goes for the levels of intensity in the chunks of my life.

No clue whether I will "see meaning" in each day's doodle . . . this is just what I thought today.

It's sorta scarey, and at the same time liberating, to try a project with such simple expectations.

Thank you, Rowena and Amanda, for helping me start this. I'm excited about the possibilities.

After the Rain

All night the sky wept. When I woke to today's gray wet morning, Love surprised me by also waking me to a heart brimming with quiet hope.

She who loves sunshine more than words can say, rose from a sweet night's sleep, tore the lid from last night's pizza box and painted a list of possibilities for today.

Third on the royal purple list was "weed." I needed to make room for the flowers I'd bought yesterday.

I went outside, ostensibly to just turn on my fountains, but I didn't come back inside for two hours. Without any conscious intent, I bent over one of my gardens and pulled a handful of grass.

Delighted at how easily it gave up its hold, I pulled another clump. Then another.

The night's rain had not only watered last year's seeds and bulbs. It had also made it nearly a joy to pull the weeds that were choking out the perennials and those determined enough to reseed themselves.

As I worked my way through first one garden, then another, I thought of all the tears I'd shed these past few days, mourning the loss of a friendship that had, in many ways, sustained me in the nearly two years since an unwanted divorce had become final.

These recent tears at times felt like molten pain, searing my insides. But they also served to cleanse and clarify.

Late last night I was finally able to acknowledge that yes, many sharp and sweet joys came out of that friendship. But this good was, sadly, more than counterbalanced by acts of hurt and betrayal.

I am ready now to accept that I deserve better.

My weeding showed me that the rain loosened the soil, making the removal of what did not belong nearly effortless. In the same way, tears had soothed and softened my bruised heart, allowing the removal of old growth, roots and all.

Once the weeds were removed, several clumps of flowers were able to show their sweet faces.

Space was made for new flowers to be planted.

And so also do I feel tiny buds of love and tender hope stir in the soil of my soul . . . watered, yes, by tears, but also warmed into blossom by Love's constant embrace.

And I too am ready for new love to take root and bloom.

Hanging onto Joy

This morning I am hanging onto joy. It's been a liquid few days. By that I mean that tears have flowed freely, with resulting puffy eyes and slimy snotty upper lip and chin (ewwwwwwwww!!)







But through it all I keep finding my way back to a smile, a laugh. True, these start as a grimace and a rumbly grumble, but eventually, within minutes (okay, within hours sometimes) they are almost recognizable as signs of a heart growing lighter once again.

What caused this recent descent into the valley of the shadow? I reached out, finally, to a friend who had been out of touch with me for several weeks, asking why there had been no responses to my previous efforts at contact. Was he okay? The response was, in essence, that he'd moved on, found someone else "better. "

Half my heart said, "Well, poop on you." The other half said, "Why wasn't I good enough?" Yet another half said, "What can I say or do here that will promote healing and growth for both of us?" Still one more half moaned, "Why me, God? Why me? What's wrong with ME???"

Yes, I'm well aware that all my bits of hearts add up to more than one whole. But that's the way I feel. God has given me a huge heart with which to care and feel and ache. And sometimes I want to give it back to Him and say, "Take back my heart. I don't want it. It hurts too damn much."

And then I realize: giving my heart back to God is precisely what He requires of me. Oh.

In my prayers lately, I've come across many Bible verses that tell me to give my "whole heart" to God. I always assumed that in addition to meaning "entire," "whole" also meant a heart in one piece. What God breathed into my sadness yesterday was that it simply meant ALL of my heart. It's okay if it's broken. Just be sure that when I hand my heart to God, I give Him all the pieces. Every single shard. Okay.

P.S. The pictures accompanying this post are more of my beautiful flowery friends. They remind me to keep blooming, no matter what. Blooming is NOT a choice for them. It is what they are designed to do.

Amen.

I'm back . . .

Yes, I'm back. And the weird part is that I didn't even realize I'd been "gone." Ever since I started blogging in January, some internal calendar sent me to the computer every few days to post a message. But in May, that evidently didn't happen.

I do know that I've felt particularly unsettled the past few weeks. A dear dear friend finally talked to me, and persisted, until I was able to see that something was indeed out-of-whack. Yes, I had made a commitment early in January to follow where God was leading me, even though it felt very uncomfortable. God had promised to be my partner in the dance of life and He was urging me--actually He was inviting me quite insistently :)--to stay out on the dance floor with Him and not to worry if I didn't know the steps (He did). And I was not to run for the chairs along the wall in between songs. Just stay out there, smack dab in the middle of the world and new experiences and evolving relationships and listen for the music.

I obeyed. A result of this was that I often felt uneasy, uncomfortable. I was definitely thinking things and saying things and doing things that were not "usual" for me. True, I was uncomfortable, but I was with the Comforter. I let that assurance support me and gradually I got more accustomed to NOT feeling comfortable.

But these past few weeks, as my dear dear friend helped me see, I had lost the joy. As I prayed in private, what God revealed to me was that in those early months, it was very appropriate that I feel sort of twitchy and at times, gritchy, due to being far out of my comfort zone. But now I had grown quite a bit. And actually, I had OUTgrown that twitchy gritchy feeling and was now feeling it only out of habit. It was time for me to lay aside what was appropriate THEN, and move forward. With joy.

As nearly as I can tell, this need for emotional recalibration is what made my internal calendar go whacky, resulting in my being oh-so-sure I had left several posts here during May, when in fact I had not. (Gee, how much MORE have I thought I've done and really, I haven't???? :)

In a sweet blessing from God and the universe, even during this time with only one post for nearly 3 weeks, several new people have visited my blog and left wonderfully supportive comments. Thank you to everyone, both new and familiar, for the responses. They mean the world.

See you soon.

Self-Portrait

Yes, odd as it may seem, except to those of you who really know me :), I'm considering this lovely bloom as a pretty accurate picture of yours truly.

This is one of a cluster of geraniums I had growing outside last summer, and which I pulled in before a frost killed them. They have wintered beautifully indoors, right next to my "sit and think and read and write" chair.

As they inevitably grew toward the sunlight in the picture window, they would lean over my shoulder and drop luscious petals of hot pink and lipstick red, some on my lap and many more on the beige carpet below.

Nope, I didn't vacuum these petals. Too pretty. Too much of a gift of bright and brillliant beauty during a loooooooong winter.

I pinched off the tops of the several plants, thinking to "manage" their growth--hoping for thick versus leggy, concerned that leggy might snap off . . .but my sweet plants had their own ideas. They continued to strain toward the sun and shot out new splindly sprouts.

I surrendered my efforts to tell them how best to grow and just took a little easel and upended it in their soil and provided a couple loops of cotton twine to loosely secure the tallest stems. They seem safe enough now.

At last count, 9 clusters of buds are in various stages of bloom. I've never had so many at one time.

I've also never felt so much bud and blossom in my own life.

Yes, the winter of my journey has seemed very long and drear, but all during it, I also insisted on blooming. The light has also irresistibly drawn me toward it. During times when I just wanted to give up, God was there to reassure me: "Even if you let go, dear one, I'm still holding on to you." And dear friends and family have also reached out to express very specific love and tender encouragement. For that, I give my deepest thanks.