Painting My Prayer

It happens every January.  Magazines, TV shows, Facebook posts - everywhere you look.  Resolutions!  Diets, gym memberships, and various self-help programs galore.  That's OK.  It is never wrong to take stock of where you are in relation to where you want to be, and the road you need to travel to arrive there.  I got a Fitbit in December and it encourages me to walk a little more, drink more water, etc.  It's a good thing.

But more and more, I believe people are rethinking how they view the year ahead.  At least, some of us are.  We have come to realize that we really don't want to fill the blank pages of days, weeks and months to come, with lists of dos and don'ts.  Instead, we choose a word of the year.  Or maybe words of the year.  Perhaps a prayer of the year. 

Since this is the start of a new decade for me, having turned 60 in December (choke), I really wanted a good word.  Something to help me be a little less set in my ways.  I chose Unfamiliar.  Nothing big, no skydiving or legally changing my name - although I think people are really brave who do that - just a word to help me remember to look at things with fresh eyes.  Take a different way to work.  Go to a new coffee shop instead of my old favorite.  Listen to different artists on Pandora. Try more foreign foods. That type of thing. 

Still, something didn't feel right about my word.  After a little more contemplation, I added a word.  Gracefully.  Because I wanted to reminded that all I do, I do by the grace of God.  Gracefully Unfamiliar.  I liked it!

Coincidentally (?) an opportunity presented itself in the way of a online painting experience aptly called "Paint Your Prayer for 2016."  It was a four week class done in your home, AND focusing on your Word of the Year.  The class was offered through Wild Sacred Heart Studios at Lorilynhurley.com.  I have known Lori-Lyn for years and felt no hesitation at all in signing on.

It turned out to be a wonderful, sacred, and introspective experience.  The other members of the class and I never met, but we developed a warm and supportive online community.  Each week we received videos with instructions on the next step.  We worked at our own comfortable speed.

Our prayer would be done in layers, and emerge as we worked and prayed our way though several steps.  As we painted, the painting itself would show us what we needed to see.  I am posting my different layers. 

We began by gathering our supplies and making our work area a sacred place, lighting candles or incense, playing music, maybe smudging with sage for purification.  This is my "beginning" photo.  A canvas left over from a prior project and a sweet, pretty easel.

Before I picked up the first brush, something became clear.  I needed a larger canvas. I sensed that I wanted more room for God to move.   Back to Michaels where I bought a bigger canvas and a real easel to support it.  OK. Now I was ready.

We began by literally painting our prayer on our blank canvases.

Then we added our first layer.  Some of us painted portals through which the Spirit would speak to us.



We continued to paint,  adding more and more images and colors as we felt led.

I ordered the wing stencils online.  They were perfect.

She began to emerge.  My spirit guide.  I really wanted her in a knee length blue dress, but the idea of painting legs and feet scared me.  So I put her in a long skirt.

 Then another one.

And another one.  Also, I wanted her to have white hair.  No way was my spirit guide going to be younger than me!

And glitter!  It is my personal philosophy that everything is better with glitter.

When we felt that our painting was complete, we added our prayer words back in.

I love her!

The paintings of my fellow classmates aren't mine to share, but believe me when I say that our finished prayers were all very different and all uniquely beautiful.

Wild Sacred Hearts Studios is offering a new class Paint Your Self-Love beginning now and I have already signed up for it. If this is your type of thing, you can learn about it here

lorilynhurley.com