...not knowing how to get there

It's not there yet. 

I enjoyed this session but it wasn't full of the excitement I usually have.  I'm going for a "watercolory" sheer blouse over the solid tank.

It's just not there yet. 

I'm not being bold enough.

My palette where I get messy is far more brave than my canvas.
 My kitchen, this morning, looks like my palette. 


It's funny.  Lately, I've been trying to get the kitchen all cleaned up before I wave out the window to my hubs and baby girl as they drive off to school. 

But I didn't make it.  I wrote a song for our next play instead.  Then one thing led to another and I decided to take a picture of real life.

In my list of "shoulds", I would have exercised and done my bible study by this hour.  I am so easily distracted by my other "shoulds" that I don't even come close to resembling "the well ordered life."

But then I looked at my mess.













And I saw beauty in the mundane.

 






 It won't stay like this for long.  (neither my kitchen, nor my painting)  But life is a bit of a beautiful mess. 

I don't want to miss seeing the beautiful part.



I'm so often missing the moment because I'm trying to get "there" without going through "here" first.

I want to see the final result without going through any gangly steps in the process.  I want each step to be perfect and beautiful.  But that's pretty un-doable. 

When you're experimenting, off on an adventure, it's about discovering steps in crevices and dirty root ladders.  It's about getting messy and sweaty.  If you are the first on the path, there's no paved walkway.

So here I am wondering how to get where I want to get from where I am.  Should I lay my canvas down flat and put small dots of paint right on my canvas and blur them out?  Will it still be transparent if I do that?  Should I get a thicker medium that will hold the color so I can work it out?  If I do that, I'll have to wait until I can get to a store or it comes in the mail. 

I SO do not like waiting.

I'm playing with the idea of scripting words I'm praying over this girl I'm painting in New York.  Words like "balance"  "accepted"  "loved"  "received"  "complete" "redeemed"  "No long lost" "delivered"  "protected"

------- and right here, I've gotten a texted prayer request---  What she requested, I won't post.  But as I prayerfully answered, I realized what I'm trying to learn....  Here is my response.

This makes total sense.  I have always admired quiet people because I talk too much. Lol.  But my hubby is like you.   It's a process of learning to feel safe and knowing your opinion matters to your mate.  Your man may not like or agree with all your opinions, but love does not require us to agree all the time. That was and is a hard one for me because I feel rejected if Hubs doesn't agree with me.   But here's the deal:   Often he can complete some faulty thinking I have especially about myself. Other times he has to learn to just let me think my way because I simply will never think like him. Duh :).

 I'm blogging right now about messy moments. It's ok if you don't get it right in your first efforts at something you don't have experience with.   

I'm going to say that again.  

It's ok if you don't get it right in your first efforts at something you don't have experience with.     

You've never been married to your man before, right?  So how could you possibly know ahead of time how to live married to Mr.Man?  You're tempted to self talk, "I should know how...be better at... understand...."   This is just silly thinking.  Where's the fun of discovery if you come in knowing it already?  Throw your head back and look up, darling.  God's grace is shining for just these types of moments.  


 So that's it for today.  I'm glad my kitchen was messy today.  I LOOKED at the berries.  I SAW the light on the waffles.  It won't ever look like this again.  That's OK too.  I'm going to try to enjoy each step, even if it's a messy one.

text and images ©2015 Lydia D Crouch

...more than logical

I'm always a bit sad in September.  My brother, Jon, who I adored beyond belief

died at the end of September when I was 13.  He was one month shy of turning 16.

It was a fluke football accident.  He lay in a coma for a little over a week.

I've been thinking back over some of what happened around that time.  He'd spent the summer with Youth With a Mission in New Jersey. 

(Marty, Jon, Me, Dad)  Taken on the drive to New Jersey for Jon's summer with YWAM  (Hard to tell it's him, but I can't find the one I love best that was taken while he was on the trip.  He's on the streets with a huge confident grin holding a little boy asleep on his shoulder.)

It was a lonely summer for me, but it began my love of painting.  He came back kinder, more fun, a better brother and peaceful while very enthusiastic.  He'd sit on my bed and tell me what he'd been learning about God.  The words made sense, but what I SAW was louder. 

He only went out for football so that he could get a chance to share about this Christ difference with his friends on the team.

As best as I remember it, the night before the accident, Mom went in to say goodnight.  He'd fallen asleep on his knees beside the bed praying for his team with his journal (a simple composition notebook) on the bed in front of him. 

Later, we read his journal.  His last words: "Lord, I love you so much I would die for you."

Me wearing Jon's retired football jersey (This was his junior high jersey the coach gave  us.)    God seems to always get me to the beach for comfort and direction somehow.

If eternity weren't so real to me, this would seem morose.   But love is inexplicable.   Not many people get to have a brother like Jon.  How could I be more thankful?

My grandfather (then in his 80's) had not been told Jon had died.  He was awakened (on the day Jon died) having had a very vivid dream.  My grandfather was a salt of the earth hunter, fisherman, farmer who could tell the best tall tales ever.  I never once heard him talk about anything else.  Dreams and visions were not in his normal M.O.  He told my mom that he'd dreamed about Jon.  In his dream, Jon was sitting in the middle of a beautiful field.  He wasn't doing anything.  Just sitting.  Then a group of youth, young men in white, were at the edge of the field laughing.  They beckoned for Jon to cross the field and join them.  Jon looked back toward where my granddad was and then to the youth.  He got up and ran laughing to join them.

Several days after the funeral, my dad was working at his office on a Saturday trying to catch up on all those days of missed work.  Alone at his drawing board, my grieving father talked to God.  My dad, who values reason more than most - the one who never answered a question without making me go look it up first - was mourning the loss of his son.  You see, Jon was the direct answer to the first prayer my parents ever prayed together.  Childhood illnesses left Dad 50% sterile and after several barren years, they prayed.  (Dad says fondly about me, "You were a surprise and have continued to be one."  :)   My brother's birth was one of many factors that eventually led my dad to inviting Christ to be his Lord.

This was in what many refer to as the Charismatic Renewal days  of the 70's when amazing things happened around the globe among the Christian church.  But also some imbalanced things began to happen.   My dad remained ever the "healthy skeptic."  To explain what I mean:  There was a time of people being "slain in the spirit" which happened to include some overzealous forehead pushing.  My dad developed what he called the "3 point stance" much like you'd see someone use in fencing/sword play.  He said, "If God wants to knock me over, he can.  But no guy is going to push me off my balance and claim in was God."  LOL  

My dad became a Christian when I was seven.  He said nothing to me, but boy was he different.  Forever.  He maintained his sense of justice, but he became kind, humble, real... and he quit making my mother cry with cutting remarks.  He didn't have to say a word.  He was just incredibly different.  (Later, when I was a teen, I confirmed the year just to be sure.)

But on this day of mourning in his office, Dad sat at his drawing table prayed, "Lord, I just wish I could tell him I love him one more time."  Dad came home and told us he then had a dream or vision, if you like.  He said he saw Jon.  He was Jon, but he wasn't flesh.  He had no clothes on, but he wasn't naked. Said said Jon's features were made up of different shades of light, but be was solid.  He simply said, "Don't cry, Daddy.  I'm happy here."

Honestly, I don't tell many people these stories, but today I miss my brother.  Today is the day I need to say that I believe in an afterlife.

There are no more Davis boys.  Jon was the only male grandchild.  I'm the youngest.  It's an odd feeling to be the last of a bloodline.  I guess that makes me a bit of a Mohican.  But I couldn't be more thankful to have had my family be exactly who they are.  They are more than I deserve.

And now I watch my son, Davis Crouch, grow his hair out for the next college look.

My guys kissing my Mama on her 90th Birthday a couple of weeks ago.

It's super curly like Jon's.  They are not alike, but they would have had a blast together!  Davis is a delight.  I couldn't imagine losing him or Laina the way my parents lost their son.  He and Laina are super close, even more than Jon and I were.

And I have hope.  And joy unspeakable and full of glory in the midst of my missing my big brother.

I know it doesn't seem logical, but sometimes love is more than logical.  It's just real.