One day at the shop a woman came in and began to talk to me. Her loneliness was obvious in spite of her smile. The bitterness in her voice and sarcasm she used spoke of deep hurt. She began to tell me about herself and her hard life. The life she described reminded me of the woman at the well. (John 4) She was a very talented artist, but had never gone to school and instead had married and settled down. She showed me some me some of her paintings on her phone. Her paintings could have come alive! But for all the wonder of her talent, she was bitter against anyone but herself. And who could blame her? Going through her now fifth divorce. She was bitter against her children for holding her back from a life devoted to art. to her advice boiled down to this: "Forget the desire for a family, it will simply impede you. Sacrifice your life to the "god" art and it will fulfill. With baggage from crumbled marriages and no Christ, her very countenance exuded bitterness. (I remember thinking "how could this be a truly fulfilled life? Is this what you are saying I have to look forward to?) That encounter did much to convince me I shouldn't pursue art as a career. But I still thought "I wish there was someway I could devote my life to art and still have a good family life and serve Jesus!"
Then I attended the funeral of a dear woman from my church. That woman could have been me! While she was alive, she and I talked about arts and crafts regularly and she encouraged me to practice and keep pursuing my art. Her great love of beauty and art and family really struck me. In fact at her funeral an interview that she had filled out was read. When asked what she was most proud of and wanted to be remembered for was "My love of art and family." I left that funeral thinking hard. Could I devote my life to my two greatest passions and still fit Jesus in? This woman had been godly, and a good mother, and yet art had been her life!
One of the greatest temptations for me is to settle for the gift instead
of the giver. God has very graciously gifted me artistically. I have an innate love of beauty and a deep desire to make things beautiful. I have
been encouraged, counseled, and (practically) commanded to follow that
natural bent and devote my life to art. Is that what I was willing to settle for? Did I want to be remembered as all about Art? Questions swirled in my mind. And then it hit me, NO. I couldn't. I had tried to find contentment without Jesus, and it hadn't worked. I had been seized by the power of a great affection and I CAN NOT not settle for the gift and not the giver. I realized that what I desire more than family or art is Jesus. I desire Him to be the neon sign of my life, even if it means I never got to art school or marry and have a family. My gifts/passions are for the Giver not to replace the Giver. My painting, drawings, crafts, etc. are all for Jesus because He is my life. I do not in any way desire to be all about art or family. Just Jesus. Anything else is an outflow.
(Just so you know, I will continue to do art and expect to marry and have a family. I am not attacking those as the problem. The problem is when I choose to make them or anything other than Jesus my complete focus.)
