God's Grace

God’s Grace

My veins hurt every time I paint on big canvasses. I see my oil paint tubes and wonder if I can use them once more without fear that they could be the silent poison which invaded my system. I look at the calendar and wonder what’s next? When others make long-term plans, I feel a stabbing pain, as a thin sheet of doubt penetrates my consciousness. Shall I make it?

A psychologist once said, “If you wish to be miserable, think about your self and what you want. You will spoil every thing you touch and finally you will make pain and misery out of everything that God sent you.”
It is so easy to be depressed in this journey. I don’t have to go around and search for it. Sitting alone and thinking of myself is enough to draw all the arrows like homing pigeons to my heart.
I can smell the potent chemicals emanating from the chemotherapy room. I can see my imperfect body as a living masterpiece of radical mastectomy. My hair which once was long, thick and curly is now reduced to an inch long crop of fine fiber hugging my scalp. Every time I take m y daily dose of Tamoxifen, I want to assure myself that it will only help stop the recurrence of breast cancer and spare my uterus from getting one too.. Although the percentage that it might occur is very small.
Others say I am brave, but I am not. The only strength I have is God’s grace. I feel His greatest strength in my weakest moments. I shudder with fear every time I hear that another cancer patient died. I feel their suffering as I see their faces, painted in my mind permanently. I hear the cries of children with cancer as they struggle to free themselves from needles and series of treatment. I see pain in my husband’s eyes as he grapples with the truth that his wife has invasive breast cancer. My heart bleeds every time my youngest son tells me that he wants to be with me in heaven when I go there. The gloom continues until I close my eyes and say stop.
Many times misery pays a courtesy call, I may dwell in it for a few seconds, but God reminds us in Romans 8:28 that “All things work together for good to them that love God.”
Faith sometimes does not grow overnight. Where there is great faith, it must have great trials. Someone said, “The time to trust is when all else fails.”
I start looking back. What do I see? Once, I lived a full and active life, with a calendar filled with activities from sunrise to sunset. Life as a radio disc jockey and newscaster dominated the number of years I worked for the media. Once I have stopped to become a full time mother for seven years which until now I have never regretted. I was able to savor those precious moments in motherhood, when my children would cling to my skirt, not wanting to let me go, and I have cherished those times. My little girl would pose to become my model, with a promise that when the painting got sold I would buy her a Barbie doll. All three of them would help me paint a huge canvas, with the same promise, a trip to a department store when the painting got sold. Until they have learned to paint by themselves now. Even when I returned to work, I always find time to paint to unwind a long busy day while filling more walls and holding more art exhibits. I was able to spend a couple of times with my sister and my mother in California, when the fields and gardens were bursting with colors exploding everywhere in the springtime. I spent time learning from other artists, talking to them, and watching them work. At the same time, I loved to just sit and marvel at the works of the master at the Getty museums in Los Angeles and other museums and art galleries in America. I would sit in front of a Van Gogh at Norton Simon Museum for hours, pondering how this great and talented artist lived in misery for the rest of his life, painting more than two hundred masterpieces and yet no one recognized the great talent. He felt so depressed that he had to be placed in an asylum.. The world rejected him, yet, his works lived, the man, the artist, begging to be understood, and when the world finally did, he is not around to taste it. If Van Gogh was alive today, he will be writing or e-mailing his brother Theo, who supported him all the way that his paintings are selling by the millions of dollars for each masterpiece.
But one of my greatest joys was teaching street children and orphans how to paint. I love watching their faces swathe with excitement as they hold a set of crayon and paints for the first time.
Sometimes, work and even hobbies can be addictive. They can take your life away literally.
When one day God knocked at my door. It was so loud that He had my full attention. Then I stopped, and suddenly I was drawn into a corner of a room, so quite, I could only hear His heartbeat.
The world stop revolving. All I saw were people in their white gowns, with closer semblance of heaven. One thing that told me I was wrong was that the smell of medicine which filled the air, and pain, yes, but not so intense, as painkillers did their job very well.
Nothing seemed to matter at that moment. Only the thought that life is as fragile as a leaf. But as long as that leaf clings to the vine, where it gets its nourishment, it can still dance with the wind.
Right now I feel like a clay on a Potter’s hand, being molded, and my Potter knows exactly what He is doing. He is not done yet, but as a master artist, He sees the finished product, beyond our circumstances. All I could do is yield to the pressure of His hand. Sometimes it is painful, but knowing that He is full of compassion and love, He will never abandon us nor forsake us, but bring out the best in us.