Freedom and Fingerpaint
On worship track mornings, I don’t always know what to expect. We meet for a few hours on Wednesday and Friday in a cozy living room. We curl up on a sofa or sit on chairs with blankets and tea. We talk about God and worship, laugh a lot, and sometimes sing.
This morning though, LeAnn, one of our leaders, said we were going to try fingerpainting for worship. My face lit up, and I realized a change in myself for the first time: Art felt freeing.
A year ago, I didn’t consider myself creative, and I definitely would never share my work. Actually, I never even had art to share. I would have shutdown at the thought of spontaneous painting, but now, the opportunity to paint is a joy and delight. The Lord has brought me out of a place of self-conscious shame into a place of freedom.
I was the kid who hated art class. I didn’t hate art, drawing, sculpting, or painting. I just never finished art pieces because to me, art had to be perfect or it wasn’t done. If my art was somehow finished, I had diligently copied the examples and refused to change the colors or details. Art class brought out fear and insecurity in me. I was too worried about what my teacher, parents, and classmates thought about my art to enjoy the process and create something beautiful. I had countless ideas and inspirations that never came to fruition.
Something shifted in my soul this year though. As I started creative journaling, collaging, and sketching visions, the Lord has revealed creativity I never knew I had. He’s helped me discover a light, beauty, and creativity in myself that I spent most of my life rejecting. Immersed in science classes and the measurable, tangible things of life, if I didn’t have a plan, explanation, or clear vision for what I was creating, I didn’t put anything on paper. This year, I found the freedom to put ideas on paper. Blank pages are no longer a threat. They are full of possibilities.
Sitting in front of my stark, white paper, LeAnn asked us to think about the word intimacy. What does intimacy with the Lord look like? When I asked the Lord, I envisioned the stars in The Starry Night by Van Gogh. I didn’t understand the connection, but I’m learning connections are much easier to see in hindsight.
I had no idea how to paint like Van Gogh, but my excitement trumped my uncertainty. I painted polka dot globs of blue, people, and green across the page keeping them carefully spaced and evenly dispersed. I added spots of white and started swirling them into the blobs of blue. The more I smeared paint onto the paper though, the harder it was to keep the colors apart. I worried the green and purple drops would mix together and more than anything, I was worried green and purple would turn ugly and brown. As hard as I tried to keep the colors from mixing though, they started to blend. They never turned brown, but I couldn’t keep them apart. It just felt messy. I had a different color of paint on each of my fingers. I had paint on my arms. At times, my painting looked like a mess too, but I really love it. I don’t think I’ve ever finished a piece I’m happy with in one sitting which is such a reflection of the healing the Lord has done in my life this past year.
When I asked the Lord how this painting reflects intimacy, He explained that as we grow in intimacy with Him, everything flows together. As hard as we try to compartmentalize our lives and separate our church, family, personal, and spiritual lives, we can’t. If we truly want intimacy with the Lord, we have to allow Him into the things we fear the most, the ugly things. Everything begins to change as we learn to love the Lord God with all our hearts, and with all our souls and with all our minds. Our lives might look messy at times, but His love will transform us and consume every piece of our lives if we let it. It will be beautiful. We just have to be willing to let it happen.
Maybe God wants to transform the very the piece of yourselves that you’re hiding, the piece that might look ugly. If He makes good, beautiful things, are you willing to let it happen?
