One form of "Art Therapy" is to make a collage. I have a friend who, when she was staying in a psych ward for a time, had made several different-themed collages to represent the different things about herself. There were dark parts, and happy parts. Contemplative parts. Wishes for the future parts.
At that time, oh, about 2002-ish? I was a new Christian, I had started going to counseling, and I had started studying Theophostic Ministry (http://www.theophostic.com/). After a conference I went to with other friends who were studying it, I felt very inspired. I had so much going on in my life, troubled marriage, son being bullied at school, unpacking memories of being abused as a kid, my own parent's divorce and how that had also impacted me. I was so unhappy, yet I was also very happy because I had found Jesus, and I knew that even though everything else seemed to be going to shit, at least I knew HE loved me. I had many dreams and aspirations that I just couldn't seem to attain. I was spinning my wheels, yet I still had much hope. I needed a tangible way to express it all.
So I bought a 4ft by 8ft piece of plywood. And I made a collage on it. LOL
I started telling my story with pictures and words cut out of magazines, and "Our Daily Bread". I began on the left, where there was anger, denial, pain, sorrow. I had a bridge from the word "pain" to the word "hope" which moved into finding God, and getting counseling, and making new friends. I had an area about being married "Will my marriage last?" was one of the quotes. That all moved into finding answers from God to many of my painful memories that I worked through in counseling. These answers set me free inside, brought me inner peace, even though my home life was less than peaceful, and didn't feel very safe. On the far right, this was for ideas of where I wanted to go in life. I had the words "freedom" and "peace" and "love" sprinkled among pictures of happy couples, and women singing, and moms cuddling with their children. I had lots of scriptures that spoke into all of these various thoughts. The one that stands out for me the most is: Joel 2:25 - "I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten." It did kinda feel like bit by bit, parts of my life, my self, had been eaten away. But here was a promise from God, that He would see to it that I was restored.
I didn't know how he would restore me. I often prayed for a "new husband". I didn't know if God would do a new thing in my current husband, or send a completely new person into my life. He gave me that answer after my ex moved out. Isaiah 43:18: "See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland." It certainly did feel like my life was one big wasteland. And it was hard to imagine how it would be restored.
So anyways, I'm back into Hulk Hogan's book "My Life Outside the Ring". There is much that he experienced in his marriage that I can resonate with. But around the time when he was at his lowest point, someone gave him the book "The Secret". Which is kinda funny, cuz I have given books away like that too. He writes about how he learned from that book, and a few other books after that, how your own thinking is what propels you in a certain direction. If you're wallowing around asking why is this happening to me... well, you're just gonna keep on going in that negative direction and keep on feeling sorry for yourself, and never move forward. He wrote about the laws of attraction, "If all you think about is how grateful you are to live this amazing life filled with wealth and happiness of every kind? Well, that life of wealth and happiness can be yours. It might take a long time to get there, but it's coming."
That's when it clicked for me, that the collage I made all those years ago, that was me. "It may take some time to get there, but it's coming." "See I'm doing a new thing, making a way in the wilderness" "Restoring what the locusts have eaten." It's like, today, I see that collage as having a huge impact on breaking the power of the negativity I was living in. Like a declaration of independence, a declaration of my life's direction, in spite of the locusts chewing away, the demons of the past and present, pulling me down, those unseen forces that hold onto you, the unseen walls that keep you trapped. If you imagine Hulk Hogan, punching a hole in a brick wall, that's what this collage kinda did, it punched a hole in the wall, and sent the scavengers scattering.
There were other things that punched holes in the walls, and a lot of them have tumbled down. But that quote from Hulk about the laws of attraction from "The Secret", that just opened up a whole bunch of thoughts and realizations about my life and the things that had an impact on it, even though I didn't know the magnitude of the impact at the time.
And now, I'm off to cuddle with my daughter and watch another Princess movie. She is sick, and we've already watched 4 movies in the last couple of days. It's a princess marathon, and she is my princess. My life is taking the form of the images I had glued onto the plywood of my future. I envisioned it, I prayed for it, it took a while, but it's here. :)
