Acceptance
Offering - Watercolor and Ink
Tonight I realized that I am beginning the long journey back to being an artist. A lot has happened since I started this blog a number of years ago. A patient tried to kill me in the psychiatric hospital I was working in, which led me to a lengthy decline into a period of depression that eventually cost me my position. After being on leave, I was allowed to return to work at another site, and eventually was given a position as a therapist. But I had stopped making art altogether, and only in the past few months have I been able to draw in the presence of God again. I still cannot create the kinds of images like I used to, but the small sketchy paintings I am able to create with watercolor seem to speak to people. So I am learning to accept a number of things:
1.) I am only afraid of the things I keep a secret. I was afraid to tell people that I had lost my job, afraid to tell people that I struggled with depression and trauma, and afraid to say that I was now intensely fearful of being hurt again. But the good thing is, that I am learning to say and paint these things… and I have for the most part (apart from a few notable exceptions) been accepted and loved in spite of these fears.
2.) I am learning to accept that I cannot be who I thought I was … and I really was not who I thought I was anyway. I thought I could handle everything: violence, intense emotional tsunamis, threats, screaming, and seeing bloody people who had hurt themselves. I found that I could not, and that the prolonged exposure to these things was eating away at my soul. I was not strong in the sense that nothing bothered me. I am learning that strength is actually acknowledging, and being knowledgeable of, my weaknesses – because I can step to the side of those pits I used to fall into again and again. I am not taking as many pitfalls by realizing I can’t do anything.
3.) I can be an artist in many ways, even the small ways. I am learning that these little paintings, these sketches painted with colored teardrops, are able to move hearts like my large paintings formerly did. This I take as an unexpected form of grace – a true blessing.
I have fallen apart, but what God is making from these shards of my former self is something I am grateful for so many days. I hurt a lot yet, but I am becoming.
7 Responses to “Acceptance”
Julie Quinn
Eric, your transparency and vulnerability is nothing short of courageous. You are a testimony to God’s grace and unfailing love. The path He has called you to blaze gives me hope and courage too.
Jan Bays
You are SO LOVED, Eric, and a BLESSING to SO MANY (including our family, of course!)!!! And, you have A LOT of prayer support! I thank the Lord for your willingness to be and accept the person He created you to be!
Laura Smit
Eric, you don’t know me, but I bought your beautiful “Orchid Prayer” at the Grand Gallery a couple years ago. I am very blessed to have your work in my home. I am sorry that life has been so bleak for you, but I look forward to seeing the beauty that emerges from this time of loss. The gospel lesson from today’s lectionary: “In all truth I tell you, unless a wheat grain falls into the earth and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies it yields a rich harvest.” May God turn the light of His face toward you.
Lynn Oakley
Eric, thanks for the transparency. I can relate. At age 57 I have spent most of my life not doing art. I am at present recapturing that part of my life. It is hard work. Seems most of it has to do with facing myself. Yet facing myself by gazing at Jesus has been the most wonderful experience. I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Blessings, Brother.
Jan Vagg
Eric, Your words are totally encouraging to me. How did I come across such encouragement to take up art again? Only God. I understand now why God was so keen for me to paint again – like you say art can totally be communing with God. My one an only tentative painting in the last decade got an all out impassioned prophetic encouragement from another believer to the effect that God wants me to paint. I think now it is not so much God wants me to ‘do’ but as you so eloquently express it God wants to commune with me as I express my love for Him and meditate on Him and matters of the heart. Thanks for sharing the inner workings of your heart and creative process.
ps I am nearly 56 and inching back to the paint brush. Lynn Oakley’s words ring so true also.
Katie de Veau
Hi Eric,
I was moved by your journey, and inspired by your art. Thank you for your courage. I can’t imagine how hard it has been for you. May you continue each day to see glimpses of His light, and each day be touched in some way by His Grace.
Blessings,
Katie
Rebecca Faubion
I saw your interview through the Grove Center for the arts…very cool. And your art is fresh and intriguing and anointed. I love the way you are putting to words the deep psychological and spiritual challenges you have faced as an artist, because in that sense you are standing in the gap for so many.
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