This coming weekend I will be on a retreat. The images I’m featuring on #mysilentscream this week will be from works of “art” I created on various TreeHouse staff retreats.

I might struggle with painting and drawing, aesthetics and having an eye, but since I was in high school poetic words came more easily.

I learned to put words on paper
That reached deep into my creative soul
Within the frame of eternity
The poet wrote the verse
A gift to one and another
Revealed but thought perverse
Broken, bleeding, stripped, exposed
Our God hung humiliated
Unbound, unburied, freed from pain of death
Heaven’s poet stretched and celebrated

This coming weekend I will be on a retreat. The images I’m featuring on #mysilentscream this week will be from works of “art” I created on various TreeHouse staff retreats.

When my friend Jill Lacher first challenged us to do art I laughed. “I am not artistic. I got Ds in art class, and I earned them.”

In time I learned that I had an artistic eye, but not like in art studios, museums or hanging on walls.

I learned to put words on paper that reached deep into my creative soul.

This coming weekend I will be on a retreat. I’ve been on many retreats. Some of my favorite retreats have been TreeHouse retreats. The images I will be featuring on #mysilentscream this week will be from works of “art” I created on various TreeHouse staff retreats.

I know of no art medium that covers up bad art skills more than pastels. So when my friend Jill challenged me to create art with pastels in hand I was less afraid of failure and rejection for my lack of skills.

This coming weekend I will be on a retreat. I’ve been on many retreats. Retreats are just that, a retreat from the norm; from daily, normal life.

Some of my favorite retreats have been TreeHouse retreats. The images I will be featuring on #mysilentscream this week will be from works of “art” I created on various TreeHouse staff retreats.

Art

When my friend Jill Lacher first challenged us to do art I laughed. “I am not artistic. I got Ds in art class, and I earned them.”

I can’t.
I won’t.

Never again.
It was a mistake.

“We all have times when we find it difficult to avoid making too much of our mistakes and perceived failures. But how do you not take rejection personally? How do you not feel like your world is crashing down around you?” 1

Moving On From Mistakes

Alice Boyes on PsychCentral identified seven ways to avoid personalizing errors and rejection. I commend her insights and I think you will too.  Note: Tips 1-3 were discussed yesterday.

Most of us like to be chosen.
But, it feels almost offensive to be chosen when we feel unworthy.
The key is when we feel unworthy, not to settle for it.

Feeling unworthy is a vicious trap.

One of the keys to breaking free is separating truth from lies, fact from fiction and real from imagined.

Losing your job will not defeat you, believing it’s useless to try again will.

Losing your health will not defeat you, believing you’re useless will.

Failing in school will not defeat you, believing it’s hopeless will.

Yesterday I was playing goalie.

The score was tied.
A minute to play.

The broomball was free on the right side.

I checked my angles. I checked my distance from the goal. I felt confident I was close enough to make a play.

I raced up to the ball.

Vivian (pictured in the back row, second from the left), our best goal scorer was near their goal crease. I knew if I got to the ball and made a good pass, that Vivian could win the game for us.

Yesterday I sat in a chair and cheered.

I sat watching the Olympics. I cheered the Olympic skiers working the half-pipe. They were defying gravity, defying discouragement and defying their previous failures.

Yesterday I also sat with several friends. I cheered them on. These friends are working through pain. Like the skiers they were defying gravity, defying discouragement and defying their previous failures.

The skiers were surrounded by fans.
My friends were surrounded by friends.

Circumstances are different but the skiers and my friends have some things in common.
They can fall.
They can fail.
They’ve done it before.

As a twelve-grader I was, I was a “survivor.“

I survived, not in a life-and-death manner that some do today, but as an endurance test.

Spanish class was my least favorite class, so it was there that I tested my endurance the most.

Since I was already watching the clock, I decided to see how long I could hold my breath. “Go!”
– More than 45 seconds
– A minute
– 75 … 90 … 100 seconds
I was silently feeling so proud when I finally made it to two minutes.
The best I ever did in high school was 2:04. I was so proud, and breathless.

Genuine beliefs are made obvious by what people do. We always live up to our beliefs–or down to them, as the case may be.

~ Dallas Williard