with a little help from my friends

it is the day you would expect when i say i live in North Vancouver.  grey skies.  falling rain.  cold and wet and a little dreary.  but GREEN.  verdant, luscious, eye and soul enriching green.  my heart goes out to all of you who look out onto white today.  i will try and drink in the colour for all of us.

it's been a wild few weeks.  i shared my story at church last sunday and have since been thrust into the awaiting arms of the cap community.  so far this week i have two lunches, a coffee date and a driving date, where a friend is going to steer me around the north shore and help me find myself a little more. my dance card is full!  (even for you Mr. Darcy).   if you'd like to hear my voice, and the story of God's action i my life, click here.

i also ripped my art down from all over the house and hung it at our realtor's office in Horseshoe Bay. it looks great, hanging on white brick.  poor scott keeps looking wistfully at the empty nails over the bed and in the living room.  i told him "you can't have me selling art and it staying on our walls - you can't have it both ways!" (read that in my most annoying matriarchal voice).   still, he slumps.  


my friend, actually let's call her my dear friend, i think she's made it to that level - my dear friend Emma took photos of me the other day.  i'm trying to be savvy and make some promotional material for myself - which is akin to running my sharpened fingernails down my face.  the photo shoot was enormous fun though - here's some of the images she took.  what you're not seeing is her adorable 2 year old girl in the periphery, talking about poop and playing with calico critters and the golf-ball eyes we had for our jack-o-lantern.  which made the shoot all the more merrier.  it's amazing what moms can accomplish.

let me take this opportunity to publicly thank jillian michaels and leah hagerty for that arm muscle.  

the last two weekends we have also been treated with friends from saskatoon coming to visit.  my daughter's little heart is currently in raptures as she plays with one of her prairie besties, and i look forward to a trip to whole foods with one of mine tonight.  last weekend we dined on pork loin and champagne with another visiting family, and took them down to the lynn valley suspension bridge.  i could see them trying to soak up the beauty in every way possible - breathing deeply, running their hands over the rocks and touching the trees and opening wide their eyes.  i was struck with how quickly i can accept these views of mountain and ocean as 'normal'.  how i want to somehow cultivate the continual awe that living here should inspire.  

the recent past has also proven, once again, that God holds my life.  I have been scrambling and spinning trying to figure out how i can sell my art.  do i meet with some galleries?  do i get an agent? do i connect with interior designers? no matter what, the steps are vulnerable.  scary.  each morning i give myself to God, and slowly through the day i finger pick my way back to control, to worry, to scheming. I  go to bed confused and uncertain, and wake up to start the process again. 

stop it Janet.

then i have the opportunity to share at our new church.  now, as you've probably guessed, when i share i SHARE.  i live with this principle that if i share my worst with you, maybe you'll feel comfortable enough to share your second-worst with me, and then we'll connect and heal together.  i can't be the only one that thinks this way.  it seems normal to me because, well, it's me.  but ever since i shared i've had countless people express thankfulness for my vulnerability.  i've had lots of affirmation with the words "brave" or "courageous" i them.  i don't necessarily think i'm those things, i just want connection.  i want healing.  i want my darkest parts to have some meaning and use. 

and now, within a week of sharing,  i have an art show.  i have had countless words of encouragment.  i have a business card.  i have a wee bit of momentum, and all of it graciously offered by my church.  of course!  of course God would work this way.  of course i can entrust myself completely to His care.  what a forgetful girl i am.

may we take the time to mentally stop the spin of life, and place ourselves again, and then again, in the still hands of Christ.