Willing - 24x36 inches - oil painting on stretched canvas- custom pine frame built by Grant White
INTENSE is the only word I can think of to describe the spiritual and religious journey that I've gone through since January. When I took my 6 month break from Instagram, I thought it would equal spiritual bliss. Turns out taking away social media took off a bandage hiding a nasty wound on my soul. I had had a painful encounter with someone years ago about religion where I didn’t know how to respond and it wasn’t until this January that I realized I never healed from that. My wound was infected. And the oxygen hurt.
I can't quite find the right term for my spiritual journey this year. Faith Crisis seems too negative and out of control. Faith transition makes me feel like I am leaving my religion, and I’m not. Faith growing pains? Maybe more like it?.
I went to a Catholic mass while I was in Boston. I met the Father over the parish afterward. As I tried to explain my spiritual stretching and pain over the last few months, he told me a beautiful analogy. He said “You see that member of our church over there?” He pointed at a 20 something year old. “Do you think she still fits in her first communion dress she wore when she was 10? Absolutely not. Because she’s grown up and just as her dress doesn’t fit her now, neither does her faith that she had when she was 10. Our faith needs to grow up and change with us. As we’re older and life gets more complex, so should your faith and you need a new dress that fits you. Make your faith fit you instead of getting mad about a dress that can never fit you again”
I think I often mourn that 8 year old, or even 18 year old who found believing so easy. But I’ve been up to the challenge of learning and growing so that my faith can work in my life as a 25 year old, and overall I feel it’s power coming back. I titled this painting “Willing” because through every attack on my beliefs, or questions unanswered, I am simply willing to let Him carry me through.