Why Birds?

Layne, why are you painting birds? You’ve never painted birds.

Frustration? Confusion? Really, anything in that vein that makes you grit your teeth a bit.

What am I supposed to be doing?

Up until recently, work went a little like this: Full-time artist - Executive assistant - Freelance designer - Horse riding instructor.

Then the Lord put it on my heart to write a novel. So I took some time off and did. Exactly one year later, I completed my first draft in secret. Then came 6 months of incessant editing. And how on this green earth does a person just move on after that? Well, you try to get an agent. Querying. Don’t ask me why it’s called that. As I type this many months after starting this process, the search is still unsuccessful. But ‘no’ doesn’t mean ‘never,’ and I have to force myself to remember that.

Birds. Right. Sorry.

Writing a book so deeply personal took its own emotional toll, and on top of that, receiving rejection after rejection from agents makes you go a little crazy. (No wonder this process is nicknamed the “query trenches”) After a couple of months, I crawled out of this cave, out of this other world, and had no clue what to do with myself.

Fighting off the remnants of seasonal depression here in Indy, I boarded a plane. My dear friends, the Loves, live in Florida, where I have an open invitation to visit. With the good excuse of a baby shower, I weaseled my way into another trip. I can usually turn my brain off there, join their rhythm. And with that in mind, my only real plan for my personal time that week was to read and pray. I just needed to figure some things out. I needed to listen.

My purse, the poor girl, was very strained that week, with my Bible, journal, and a couple of books jammed inside. The Weight Of Glory by C.S. Lewis and Room For Good Things To Run Wild by Josh Nadeau. The latter returned home with me, tear-stained.

What am I supposed to be doing?

Reading, writing, praying… Not hearing anything. Not feeling anything. That’s a lie. Really, I was feeling too many things, and not a one seemed to me in any way helpful. And what a treat that is, to be doing the things that ought to be right and good and helpful to no avail.

What am I supposed to be doing?

You do the good things anyway, I suppose. Surely my own short-sightedness will wear off, or at least I’ll get close enough to the answer to see it. That’s where I get caught. I receive my instruction, this ‘deep knowing,’ or whatever you want to call it, and dive in. Then I forget to come up for air until I’m frantically pawing my way back to the surface. “But you asked me to do this, Lord? I shouldn’t have needed air.” Living Water, right? Except my calling is not the Holy Spirit, and my work is not the Lord. Not my ‘god,’ though I’m tempted to make it such.

Then it’s another 45-minute drive down to St. Augustine Beach. Another latte from the Kookaburra with my last bit of spare change, before heading across the street to walk alongside the waves. I didn’t know what else to do. That’s the nice thing about a beach, you can just walk. So I walked and prayed, and lamented, and tried my best to praise Him. Eventually, my ambling came to an end, and I laid out a towel and continued reading.

In his book, Nadeau references C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed:

God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.

It was then that I began to weep.

And when I regained enough wherewithal to open my burning eyes against the already burning sun, I wrote this in the pages:

I feel as though it’s a test—not that kind—but one that I am meant to fail. I feel condemned. I feel as though I should be “waiting better.” And if I had, then I wouldn’t be in this position. But that’s not it. The lesson isn’t dependent upon my behavior, but rather my heart. And even I do not know my own heart. Only He does.

My back was prickling with a fierce sunburn, but I didn’t care. (later that night I did) Nor did I care about the group of “snow birds” that pitched their umbrella twenty feet from me, oblivious to my current state of spiritual fragility. I was trying very hard, you know, not to let my shoulders shake so much.

I wish I could neatly articulate to you what this meant to me. What it means to me. But that is the personal nature of a relationship with the Lord. Perhaps even if I could tell you, it would fall flat because it’s not intended for you. But all that comes to mind now is Romans 8:26-28:

26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with gtoanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

“I want to get back to it,” I was praying on the walk back up the beach, “but it’s got to be different this time. It’s got to be from You.”

And I heard a whisper in my spirit telling me that I am meant to be painting birds in this season.

What is the significance of that? I don’t know. I’m just looking up scriptures that mention birds, and I’m painting.

If you must know, I don’t even want to paint birds. If I’m going to paint anything, I want to paint mammals. Not birds. But maybe I’ll meet a nice ornithologist one day, and this will be an attractive skill to possess. (I hate to admit that I didn’t even have to Google “ornithologist”)

Hear my heart, I’m in no way implying that anything I ever have or ever will create is infallible. It certainly is. And that’s the point, I believe. The plodding on despite imperfection. How would I ever master a calling or bless others if I didn’t simply begin?

So, birds it is.

At Rest Linocut print.