I want to share with you how my painting, “Shattered Silence”, came to be. But it is so weird I almost cannot believe it myself – and I was there, holding the paintbrush! Some time ago, probably around 2006, the muddy mess “painting” shown above on the left was done by me playing with watercolor paints; swishing colors onto the paper to see what would happen if I did this or if I did that. Then this sheet of painted paper was stacked and stored with other paint experiments, waiting for a time when I might want to use it. Below is the story of the eventual re-making of “Shattered Silence” as written in my 2013 journal…
Last week I was going through a stack of old papers and came across this watercolor experiment from a few years ago. I was immediately attracted to the colors and pattern. Within the abstract shapes, I noticed a purple person with an outstretched arm and thought, “Hey, this art is me – speaking up for my faith and defending the cross!”
So I set about trying to crop out the distractions and focus on the person. Next I re-aligned the picture to get rid of the weird angle so you can recognize the person is actually a person. As I was looking closely at the painting, I began to notice the colors were all muted and muddy. They were bright at first glance, but I’d really over-worked the painting and I know I wasn’t being careful to keep my brush clean. The yellows were brownish and the blues were too, even the pinks. It seemed that everything had a yucky, swamp-water cast to it.
I decided it was worth trying to do the painting again, this time being careful to keep the brush clean and using better quality paints. Yesterday, I spent about five hours trying this and trying that. Things went wrong, to say the least. I could say it went from bad to worse, but truth be told, it started out “worse” and just stayed there the whole five hours!
In total frustration, I was ready to call it quits and just resign myself to the idea this wasn’t meant to be. I took a break for dinner and began to pray. I wasn’t willing to let go of this image in my head and I really felt God had put it there. So why wouldn’t He help me to paint the picture? Bit by bit, the idea came to me that I didn’t need a new piece of paper, just fresh and vibrant color on the old piece of paper.
So for the next three hours, that’s what I did. Painstakingly, I scrubbed out the muddy areas with a clean brush and let them dry, then filled in with bright new, clean colors. I made the person even more “person-like” and took out competing purple blotches so she became the focal point. Then, finally, a severe amount of cropping happened! The resulting picture is a fairly good match to what I imagined it could be. But I’m so amazed at what I had to start with.
This morning the Lord helped me realize why this story is so important to tell: God didn’t start over with a new world when Adam and Eve first sinned. He worked – labored – to redeem them and He made something glorious out of their sin-stained, messy, and muddy lives. The most glorious part is that it was all according to His plan. He knew before the foundation of the world that His Son, Jesus, would need to die on the cross for reconciliation and redemption to occur.
Moreover, for my life to match up with His plan for me there would need to be a lot of scrubbing, a drastic re-alignment, a severe amount of cropping, and fresh colors poured over me from His Holy Spirit. But the result would be that I could indeed shatter the silence with His praises as I report to my people all the Lord has done for me and how He has had mercy on me.
“Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.” Ephesians 3:20-21
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If you missed the original post of “Shattered Silence” on Novemeber 11, you can read the full story here.