monday musings: art & a call to action

It’s Monday, and if you’ve read my blog for any amount of time, you know what that means: Monday musings. I don’t know why it is, but Mondays just seem to bring out the philosophical, deep, pensive thoughts in me. My brain feels like a carnival today, bright colorful thoughts careening about, along with a few darker, troubled ones. I am at the same time excited, yet anxious. Anticipating, yet lost.  Hopeful & hopeless.

Here’s an attempt at an explanation. One: I am job-hunting (have been for a few months). Nothing has come up so far. Which is okay. I am enjoying my free time & luxurious afternoons/lunch hours with my farmer husband. Recently though, I got the ball rolling on what could be a really neat opportunity to teach art. I’m not sure where/if it’s going to go. But I have an optimistic feeling about it, & the flutter of excitement at doing art again has me dragging out all my old drawings & pouring through art education books. Plus I feel like this is going to be more than teaching art; it will be a sort of mission field. (Is that too lofty?) Whatever it ends up being, or not being, I am feeling more alive & vibrant than I have for a few months, so it will all be worth it, no matter what happens.

 Some drawings & my planning mess. I feel like drinking from my Columbus, Ohio mug takes me back to my art school days & makes me more creative. 

Two: On a completely different note (or is it?), I’ve been stumbling across all sorts of human trafficking articles, conversations, organizations lately. (Isn’t that weird, Shara? I had no idea you were on the same page…think God’s trying to tell us something?) And I’ve been feeling a call to action. How, I don’t know. What I am supposed to do with my new knowledge that girls in Portland, an hour from my home, are being trapped into a living hell is a little unnerving. I don’t just want to sit & lament the fact that it’s happening. I want to do something! But what? What can I, a simple girl who’s never known such horrors, do? A radio conversation I was listening to pricked me, “You don’t have to do everything. You don’t have to save every girl, every child. But do what you can, where you are. Just do what you can.” And so I feel like God is calling me to do what I can. And I want to. I’m just not sure—outside of prayer & monetary donation—what that is yet. One thing I am sure of is this: God is good and what is impossible with humans is possible with God. So I will try to listen to His leading & be an empty vessel to be used by Him.

So there you have it. The swirling thoughts of my Monday brain. A little deeper than what I normally write, but what is going on in my life (the goal of this blog after all) nonetheless.