For the One Who is Greiving

Three weeks after my brother died tragically, I sat down in my studio to paint. Except I couldn’t paint. I just sat there. I sat in front of a 60" canvas and started scribbling loosely on it with an oil pastel. I drew circles and wrote words that were coming to me. It was completely random. It had no rhyme or reason to it. I felt completely uninspired and numb, so I laid down my pastel and just walked away from it without looking back.

The next morning I walked into my studio and gasped. From the completely random shapes and scribbles, I could clearly make out what appeared to be a crowd of people looking back at me. Some of them appeared to be embracing each other. As I looked at them each day I thought, maybe they were my guardians.

I could hear them whispering, "Breathe. You are going to be okay."

I hadn’t really painted many figures up until that point. And I'd never had something like this happen to me before. So I wasn’t sure what I should do next.

A couple of months later, I took that canvas and I finished the painting with a message that the Lord had breathed into my heart from scripture, saying, “I am with you.”

As I painted in each figure, I suddenly understood who each one was. The four babies that I lost are in this painting. Three of my grandparents are in this painting. My brother Mike is in this painting. They are all there.

Today this piece of artwork hangs in my home and reminds me every single day that I’m not alone. A crowd of witnesses surrounds me and cheers me on.

This message of hope is especially for the one who has lost a dear loved one. YOU need to know that you are not alone. Your loved one is with you in a different way.

For we have a large crowd of witnesses around us. So let us rid ourselves of everything that gets in the way and run the race that lies before us..." from Hebrews 12:1