I managed to get four sessions. I wanted the peace that usually comes from prayer.
Usually comes. Today I left feeling as heavy as when I started.
Worked on a picture on the wall there. Jesus as an ordinary guy... a carpenter. He’s using a chisel to notch out a large beam. I’ve drawn him slightly larger than life. His eyes down, looking at His work, making clear, sharp edges so it will fit another beam. He is wearing a sort of apron, nothing authentic, I just made it up, but it has a couple of pockets. in one pocket the handle of another chisel is barely seen. In another, four large nails.
I’m doing my usual thing, creating the image out of writing prayers and scripture. Slightly new technique though. I'm overlapping the writing where I want it to create darker areas instead of simply writing smaller. The effect has a little more control for color, but less detail. I think it's better.
I wrote stuff about my marriage there, but I know no one will be able to read it as it is written and rewritten and even I can't make out what is there once it gets covered a couple of times.
So, it will be our secret, OK? The picture is a little nicer than usual, and more personal. This time I know that when a year rolls 'round and it gets repainted, I will feel a greater sense of relief in covering it over. And hopefully it will be at a time when all this current mess is behind me and it will indeed be a new beginning.
Folks will wonder why I would want to paint it over, try to convince me I shouldn't. I will smile inside, knowing intimate prayers of hurt and sorrow have been offered, received, and wiped clean again.
Brenda is at an AA meeting. She will be home soon.
The counselor gave us a handout to read and make notes on. It’s about communicating fairly, owning our emotions, the sort of stuff one would expect from a marriage counselor.
I feel anxious all the time. I’m not spying on my wife, investigating her whereabouts... nothing of the sort. I’m just learning to accept the mess I’m in and preparing my heart to do what is right.
This is a time in my life when I need to be very careful. The decisions I make will affect me and my family for a very long time. I don’t want to be in a position when I might look back and regret not doing, or doing, something. Whatever this year brings, I believe that when that picture is painted over this will be behind me. One way or another.
I’d like to sit and watch the Carpenter work. I’d like to be in that casual space of His workspace, the time before He began His ministry.
Right now, that is the Jesus I seek in my prayers. The guy who shaped things out of wood. I’m willing to let Him shape me now.
9 comments:
I was caught by your picture. in awe of it because I know you. I'm going to appreciate the silence of the awe!!!
Thank you. I expect this picture to require another twenty hours or so of prayer.
I like the fact that I can pray openly here, write it down, know that it is there... but unreadable by others.
I do so much of my processing through writing... talking it out so to speak.
Here I can do that mixed with prayer.
I guess it's a blog to God.
SO. VERY. POWERFUL.
This kind of "therapy" is truly priceless.
Excellent.
I shared this with Julie. She said you should sell your work. I told her you paint over what you do on the prayer room walls and give away some of your movable pieces. She was horrified.
She said you were like a prophet. She said you were like an angel on earth. Then she said you were like Job. I turned and just looked at her with a smile on my face. I never told her the title of your other blog.
You are truly amazing my friend. And I am proud to call you such.
Love,
Justin
Hmmm.... "amazing"?
As in the result of being put through a maze? Ah... I get it! As in confusing.
Thanks for the compliments. I'll try not to let them go to my head. (I've a good friend who refers to my head all the time, his way of keeping me humble.)
Just got back from Springfield, Oregon. About two hours away. Jeremiah had his Special Olympics State Basketball Tourney this weekend.
His team didn't win any medals, just ribbons, but I told him that he did a great job, obviously the hardest working, most talented athlete there.
So, no church today.
I'm glad you are my friend, too.
---Oh... that goes for the rest of you too! I'm grateful; for all of you who come, visit, pray. Thank you. I'd rather rely on your prayers than Xanax!
will, try get a real good photo of your paiting before it's "erased". I want a copy of it and I think a few others would also...you're #l private fan. : )
First thing that came to mind when I saw the picture: "It looks like Will". Jesus alive within Will.
It looks like ME?!!!
Hmmm...
That is a weird take.
Could it be true?
The angle of the face hides much of the distinguishing features. I thought I had made the nose a little more "middle eastern"... but now that I look at it, it didn't turn out that way.
And why is the beard short? His beard should be longer.
The pony tail seems more like one I had once...
I'll have to think this over.
Aside from working through my prayers, writing out the questions I have about my wife, my family, my path and growth, I wanted to pray through ink... Praise Him, copy John's gospel...
What I wanted with this was a larger than life Jesus, the one who could be a friend, the one who would show me His craft, and be willing to talk a walk with me around the cemetery and listen for the owl. No scars on the hands or brow... The Jesus before He did His supreme task.
He is obvioously working to create a cross, the nails are for him and to fix the beams together...
But this is before all that... a man doing His best.
I'll have to think over these comments...
praying for you both
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