Adversity

So I am wanting to do a project every week to have enough inventory to really set up shop and start selling things by April or May. This week has been a real challenge. I started a new contract job and it has taken up a lot more time than I thought just to learn the ropes. But... I am determined to do a project a week. I've learned and am still learning a WHOLE lot about goal setting and organizing and overcoming adversity that happens anytime you are trying to accomplish something. At one point, I told God, "God, how many times are you going to knock me down? Are you trying to kill me? How am I'm supposed to think you've got my best interest at heart when these things are coming at me relentlessly? If you're soveriegn, I really have a hard time believing you're good at this point." Let me tell you, I have bantered with God about this for years, honestly. Sometimes it has really tripped me up, but I think I am starting to really practice seeing things a little differently.



{my studio. anything but organized at this point.}



I won't go into all the obstacles I've been through this week, but I thought I would share a project mishap, which happens to all artists at some point, that I think is a small-scale metaphor of what I've been processing about adversity and how to come out on top. My Mom joined me at the studio because she is making her own project for something she needs - one of those chalkboard picture frames you see on Pinterest. Number one, she had trouble finding just the right size frame to work with. Number two, when she finally got one and started working on it, she accidently broke the glass she was painting the chalk paint on! So she said something like, "Okay, with all you have been thinking about adversity this week, how can we apply it now?"

I remembered someone saying this week, that sometimes when unexpected adversity happens, God is giving us an opportunity to grow, to expand, to think outside the box. It is an opportunity to look at life differently than you normally would. No, things didn't work out how you thought, but something better can happen if you look for it. The people who find meaning in adversity are the ones who make it. So what we did, was take the matted print that was in the picture frame that we had originally thrown aside and we painted over that. The end result, I thought was a lot more interesting, actually. The print and the matte were textured and it also had a nice boarder that we wouldn't have gotten with just a flat piece of glass. Who knew we would actually need the print? But we did, and it looks great! So when I saw how hers turned out, I actually decided to make one myself to sell when my store opens, as well. Artist lingo is that this is a "happy accident." But somehow I don't think these are accidents at all, but a gift from God that gives us an opportunity to grow. God is a giver of life and growing is definitely a sign of life.



{Can you see the awesome monochrome border the matte created? I think the story behind it totally fits All Things New Studio's philosophy. A bad situation redeemed. :)}

 

 

I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33