Painting Love God and art are two of my greatest passions in life, passions that fuel a desire to serve others. A passion I hope I share with you dear reader. Only, what happens when obstacles, limitations, and life circumstances get in the way of that desire? Today, I want to relay what God has shown me; a creative way to make a difference, by seeing every moment as an opportunity to love, unlimited by circumstances.
This lesson comes in the form of a story. My story. Here is how it begins; I had the most incredible childhood because of the love of my parents and sister. Nevertheless, from an early age I also had significant health challenges. I had my first neurosurgery at 4 for Chiari Malformation a problem where due to a lack of room the brain herniates into the spinal column. The impact of this and other issues caused by it affects me to this day. As you can imagine I had a large number of sick days home from school as a kid. Every time no matter how I felt when I woke up in the morning I was excited, excited because I knew my mom had something fun planned. Crafts, activities between naps, reading books to me, a fun lunch, cookies, entire themed days, you name it she did it. She planned something special every sick day making every day good, every day fun, no matter the circumstances. Teaching me one of life’s most important lessons at an early age; expect the good. Anticipating the good showed me every day holds something beautiful you just have to look for it. Joy, fun, goodness, truth, and beauty are always there just waiting to be discovered. When I was recovering from my first surgery I remember everything seemed hard, walking… the frustration of not being able to play. So, I began to draw. Here was something I could do, and I fell in love. When I couldn’t discover a tree by climbing it I could discover it in a new way through drawing in trying to capture the colors, textures, and the way it made me feel. This pursuit made me notice and love the little things I was finding in each day all the more. In looking for the good I began to notice God’s presence. To discover Him in ordinary moments and in acts of kindness. One of my earliest memories is from the Shand’s ICU, I was four and a beautiful young woman named Brooke who was probably fifteen or sixteen had befriended me. She seemed so grown up to me I remember thinking at the time she must be the doctors assistant. To my great surprise while I was recovering from my surgery someone came in to see me, walking through the door and to my bed …slowly painstakingly, with a walker, and a shaved head. I didn’t recognize her at first. My mom whispered in my ear who it was, I should have known by her smile. It was my friend Brooke. For as long as I live I will never forget her walking into my room I can still picture it. The strength and kindness she showed in checking on me in spite of her own pain was a profound example of kindness that opened my eyes and my heart in a new way. In each moment of goodness, beauty, and kindness I was encountering God. Somewhere along the line I started praying not out of childlike eagerness to please or because my parents told me to, simply because I felt God’s love for me and I loved him back, I wanted more of Him. One encounter, one childlike prayer at a time He showed me He is to be trusted. One challenge, one surgery, one suffering at a time I learned to depend on Him. Each time in new, different, and deeper ways. I learned to look for and find the good that God was working in each day, the beauty He created waiting to be captured by my pencil, the chances to be kind. Each is one of a million little moments where God showed up and I received the grace of His presence that built a foundation of trust. You might be wondering what trust has to do with service and making a difference, well I believe it is everything. Because it is trusting God to work good in all things that transforms each and every ordinary moment into occasions to love. That relationship of trust carried me in high school when I began passing out frequently, at certain points as often as once a week. I was dependent on the near constant help and caregiving of my family, friends, and teachers. The whole time praying that God would make me better. The whole time learning to trust Him in the midst of uncertainty. God filled me with a deep desire to give back to the people who were taking such wonderful care of me, but so often when I woke up after fainting I couldn’t speak yet to thank them so I learned to smile as a way of letting them know I was okay and grateful. One day a girl from one of my classes that I didn’t know very well came up to me and asked if we could talk, I was surprised but said okay and we stepped into a closet at school to talk, huddled in the cramped closet she proceeded to tell me about all the hard things happening in her life. She shared with me everything she had been facing which was significant, and then she began to tell me how a few days earlier on a particularly hard day she watched as they took me out of school on a stretcher after passing out and I was smiling. She looked at me with such earnestness and said if you can smile through that then I can keep going. Then it suddenly hit me… all those years I had been praying for God to make me better, better so I could help people. But He was making me better! He was making me a better person so I could help people. So I could learn to love in and through the smallest acts, even a smile. A few years after high school my health really started to improve! I was able to go off to Flagler College and pursue my love of art. I got involved in campus ministry, I was able to volunteer at the same children’s hospital in Jacksonville where I had stayed. Suddenly, I was able do more of the “big” things I had always wanted to do to help others, the things I imagined made the biggest difference. I was blessed with healthy and wonderful years at Flagler, making lifetime friendships, while learning about painting and life. And so I started planning, because I was ready to paint the beauty of the world for others to see, and ready to make a difference in the lives of the kids in the hospital… Then during my senior year I started having some serious health issues again, at first it was seeing stars, numbness down my arm, headaches at night, but I had things to do people to help so I tried to dismiss the symptoms and keep going. Ignoring them became harder and harder and slowly I went from helping to the one that needed help. By the time I graduated I had to have help from two of my professors to cross the stage. We realized soon after I needed two more Neurosurgeries. Suddenly all “my” big plans keyword there being “my” to make a difference through work at the hospital, painting, and campus ministry weren’t happening. In spite of the lessons of trust God had already taught me I still felt like I could make the biggest difference through big acts and through art. I wanted so desperately to change the world, to be great! I was faced with the question, how do I continue my dream of painting and loving others when I am physically capable of so little? I came across a quote by St. Mother Teresa, a hero of mine it said; “Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love …The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.” I had just finished college yet God was transforming my circumstances into a school of love. A school of small things. After brain surgery I couldn’t so much as sit up without help, I was only capable of the smallest things. I wanted to paint, so God brought me people. People who became my new medium.Each person I encountered I could now see as a gift, an opportunity, a blank canvass to paint love upon. Instead of brushstrokes one smile at a time. I wanted to help people in the hospital, so God brought me nurses, and janitors, physical therapists, and the woman who brought me food. With each person came an opportunity to put as much love as possible into the words, thank you. I wanted to help others encounter the love of God, so he showed me how to trust him in suffering, so that in some small way I might mirror the image of Jesus. Those were my desires and God made each possible in ways I never could have imagined and He still continues too. It is so easy to view service as an act limited to a certain time. You know what I mean we have our volunteer time, our home time, and then work time and they are all separate. But love and charity don’t clock in, they are for all times, and all occasions. So here’s the idea to make a difference in the world and in ourselves; see each and every moment as an opportunity to build up our community, by loving well the people within it. By saying hello to strangers, kind words to our waitress’, even offering a smile to the person who cuts you off in traffic. Each is an unrepeatable moment, an occasion to love. Opportunities to serve are always there regardless of our circumstances. Even in the smallest acts. Especially in the smallest acts. I hope my story gives you encouragement when you meet your own struggles in life as we all do. I know if you are in this room you are here because you want to make a difference everyday. So when you encounter your own life circumstances that feel like obstacles to charity, take courage and remember the circumstances of your life are not your life they are merely the canvas on which God paints. There is no limit to making a difference, because there is no limit to love. The challenges I have faced have required an ample amount of waiting: waiting for doctors appointments, waiting for surgeries, waiting to get better, waiting to make a difference. I have learned to stop waiting. To live now, to love now, and to no longer see obstacles. To wake up each day like my Mom taught me anticipating the good. To live knowing that each moment is a gift and an opportunity to paint love into the world … regardless of my ability to hold a paint brush. I believe you can too.
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