Anyone who knows me probably knows I am an artsy creature. It's how God made me. As a child I loved being an artsy creature. It made the world more magical. But it allowed that I could expand on the world I knew by delving into my imagination to create something. Oddly, it is also part of why I believed in God, even as a child and especially as an adult. The Spirit of God has dealt with my heart and mind for all of my life. And since God is a creator, I felt a kindred spirit. I always knew that drawing and designing were a gift from him, as well as many of the supplies that I used in my earliest play.
I can play for hours in my Gimp program, with no purpose at all in mind. Having a purpose for my design makes doing it more difficult than fun. But for God, I have always thought it must be just the opposite. I truly believe God must have gotten a lot of fun out of putting his Great design into place and watching his vision grow. I can, therefore, understand, when we humans decide to not worship him, or even acknowledge him, that he is saddened.
My art is sometimes a means of lifting my own spirits. Many people I know have issues with the melancholies an artist encounters. They have no tolerance for my tears. They truly don't understand why I can't be jolly all the time. I have heard through out my life the question - "Why are you so serious?" For me, reality is serious, all the laughter and jolliness are forms of denial, and a way of not facing reality. Life is hard and I just can't laugh it off. I want solutions, not an ability to put off dealing with reality. And if it were just me and God, I could go on living life that way. It's the denial people that make my life hard...LOL. I can laugh about that, you see.
Something I found out, especially as a young woman working in churches, was that my tears were often misread. I had a pastor once come to me and tell me I could lay it all at the altar, when actually, my tears were evidence of feeling an incredible joy for someone who was saved that morning. I always believed even angels must be moved to tears, when someone is born again.
Not all tears are about sadness. I used to cry often. And most of the time, my tears wear tears of joy. I could be moved at the slightest bit of beauty and it would bring me to tears. I was full to over-flowing with intense and wonderful emotion. And people around me would either be wanting to console me, or make me stop crying by shaming me, or cracking jokes. Why would they take that ecstasy away from me? I never understood.
But as life would have it, I married a man who would eventually do away with my joyful tears. He was constantly determined to make me smile instead. The result for me has been having health issues, including depressions as a result. I firmly believe, as well, that many of my physical issues are because I don't have that connection to my world I once had, that which gave me those extremes of joy I once experienced, in child-like freedom. To be who God made me to be. I was connected to God in a special way in those times. I always felt as if he was very near, experiencing that joy along side me. Just because I loved his creation or his work in someone's life, soooo much I cried.
Now that I am older, I have realized - I must be who God created me to be! AND, I am more vocal, and adamant in my pursuits of being who God created me to be. Tears and Crafty person..all.
I draw more again. I take in the beautiful, to the extent that I sometimes annoy the people around me with my love of the smallest of things. And I leave myself exposed to a lot of criticism. I still don't cry when the sun sets with a myriad of hues, but I often do when someone is born again. Can't everyone feel the enormity of the God of the universe- bigger than the universe- finding a home in the heart of we who are so small? Isn't that the most incredible thing? Worth tears - Tears of Joy?
This Christmas, my grandson had two balsa wood craft projects, chosen from lots of sets of kits at our local craft store. They were nutcrackers, one of his favorite decorations this year. There is a whole story behind that developing of course. But to be simple, they arouse in him emotion, for which, from being a boy, his has already been heavily reprimanded for sharing. So he holds it in inside, to the extent that he even can be heard saying to himself, "I am not going to cry."
Being who I am, I hurt for him. I worry what effect it will have on his health as well. But a genuine outward indication of how much he is feeling it, was reflected when he colored his balsa nutcracker crafts. After meticulously drawing and coloring their uniforms, he drew tiny jagged lines to make the hair and beards look more real, and then from their eyes he drew tears. I wondered, "had he seen some with tears?," but didn't question. But he asked, "Nana, do you know why they have tears?" as if he read my mind. As I shook my head "no", he said,
"They are Tears of Joy! Because they are so happy it's Christmas. "
And to that, I almost cried..."Lord, may he always have Tears of Joy. Please...continue to give him ways to express his ecstasies without reproval."
I now pray- "may I continue to value my own gift to draw and paint and design my feelings...even my tears of joy. And thank you for this outlet, especially when its for tears of sadness. And especially when the art helps our sadness. And help us share our Joy, even when we are misunderstood. If not through our tears, then maybe through a more universal expression, our creativity." AMEN
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