Friday, January 16, 2009

The Painting: By Candace Stone

Ok so I wrote this a while back and wanted to put it on my blog because I feel like there are many women out there that put themselves down or feel inadequate in their roles as women, wife's, mothers and so on....We see ourselves so negatively as women sometimes and we don't really see the truth about ourselves...This came to me after a conversation with my real mom and it stirred me to look at myself inside and out and be pleased with what God has made me to be and work on bringing myself back to the woman God intended me to be :)

I came up on this amazing antique furniture piece at a beautiful and quaint store in Ashville, N.C...At this amazing store I found an antique shelf there housed with what was one of the most beautiful paintings I had ever seen. It was of a girl about my age early thirties..I love to look at art and analyze the pieces and figure out what is going on with those folks who allow themselves to be painted....I looked deep into the eyes of this lovely girl and saw so much pain and a slight sense of emptiness, but noticed the delicate lines around her eyes that had obviously come from more than one or two hard laughs she had experienced in her young life. Lines that directed me to the understanding that she has known joy, but has lost it somewhere down the road....The wrinkles on her forehead perfectly aliened filled me in on her shock she had experienced in life and possible fear. I noticed that her cheeks were down instead of puffy and alive and that what looked like a person who had once had a sweet disposition actually had changed into a hard, cold and indifferent Girl....I stepped back from the painting to analyze other characteristics of this piece of art and noticed this young girl with her hands clasped as if she were ringing them in worry and her shoulders were hunched over to hide what could be beautiful breasts and a gorgeous body; that she apparently found disgusting and decided the whole world felt the same ...All of this showed; to me that she was in fact insecure and didn't trust anyone ......Her clothes oddly enough were neatly pressed as to say "I am cleaned up and put together." Her feet were adorned in sandals, but left her feet open to show how harsh, rough and worn they have becoming over the years....Obviously from what seemed to be a long and tiring Journey that made her weary in her sweetness....

I looked up back into the face of this gorgeous girl and said to her "you are TOO beautiful to be sad and Cold....I see bitterness in your heart and I don't even know your name"....I wanted to reach into this painting and help her to see how beautiful she was and how even though the experiences of the past have haunted her and made her indifferent that if she would just look at her beautiful face and find joy in the children at the bottom of the painting and the man standing behind her...Embrace her curvy body and hold her shoulders back and show off what God has blessed her with...Then she would know and see that she was beautifully and wonderfully made and that it's okay to have a journey and find yourself broken on the inside; which will only push you to let go of the outside, but that you can allow God to Weld the pieces back together, put it on the fire, cool it off and it will be just like new again, even better! By this time i was really hoping i could just pull this girl out of this painting and scream these things to her...Suddenly the sales clerk called me and i turned away from this painting briefly only to see a totally different picture when I turned back...I stood and wept as I looked into this painting again because it wasn't a painting but it was me looking into my own reflection!!!

2 comments:

Allison said...

beautiful......................

Paige Martin said...

wow....amazing...i love it!!!