...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