I know
you’ve heard the phrase, “I couldn’t stomach it.” Well, that literally happened
to me last week. My stomach got all knotted up and nothing would go
through—everything I ate felt like it was stuck, and I mean really stuck—it hurt. I couldn’t eat,
only drank ginger ale and ate a little toast; I was getting weak. I thought maybe
I’d eaten something bad, but that wasn’t it. Here’s what happened:
It was a
Thursday and we found out at work that we were to do some ceiling murals for an
addition at one of the casinos. I was excited. The murals that are there now
are spectacular and it was a dream come true to be able to do something to even
complement them. To even be considered in the same category was thrilling.
I started on
a mock-up for the project. I walked up the stairs into our area and on a piece
of vinyl, my bosses had already painted in a sky and blocked in areas of green
for the trees and roses. So far, so good. My big boss said, “I have a
presentation Monday and I’d like to take this with me.” That meant that I had only
two days to get it done. My immediate boss was also going to work on it and had
started mixing colors, but she was busy with another project that day. I got
into it right away, but there were a lot of unanswered questions I was
stressed.
We were to
paint as if you are looking up and there is a roof garden with orange trees up
there and roses, some of which are hanging down toward you. There are also some
birds flying in the sky above.
First of
all, I didn’t know what scale we were working in. In other words, how tall were
the trees supposed to be, and what about the size of the closest orange? How
was this mural going to be done on a large scale? Were other people going to
work on it or just me? Or maybe just me and my two bosses? Or did I have to
make it simple enough for a lot of people with less ability to be able to work
on it together and make it look cohesive?
And that was
just the beginning of my questions. What about method? Should we sponge in
areas of green? Or maybe we should make a stencil of different sized leaves,
getting smaller as they got further away? Or could we just use brushes to paint
it? What was the best way to do this? What about colors? My immediate boss had
mixed up nine greens, but I also needed two colors for the branches and three
colors for the oranges, and that’s not counting the rose bushes or the birds.
And did I mention that we didn’t really have a good reference to look at? We only
had one small picture off the computer and it was really small and we couldn’t
see many details. My brain was screaming.
I felt like
I really needed these questions
answered to come up with viable solutions for the problems I was faced with,
but my bosses were busy so I had to just carry on alone.
That’s where
I made my big mistake. Jesus said, “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these
things shall be added unto you” (Matt 6:33 ).
I should have just stopped, gotten quiet, asked for God’s help and then started. It’s not that hard, but I
allowed myself to get flustered and I forgot the very first step.
In Exodus 35
and 36 is the record of how God gave his artists three things. The first was
wisdom. Wisdom is how to do
something. God also gave them knowledge, or information. And thirdly, He gave
them understanding. I believe in this, and I’ve proven it many times in my
artwork.
But this
time, I left God out of the first part of the project; I got overwhelmed and
then instead of relying on God to show me, I relied on sheer determination and
pride that I could ramrod it through and accomplish what was needed. But when
the pride had nothing substantial to latch on to…Bam! Real terror set in and
gripped me hard. My thoughts were bombarded with: “My bosses can do a better
job than I’m doing. I’m not as skilled as they are. I don’t know how to do
this. What if they hate what I’m doing and don’t let me work on it because I’m
doing such a poor job?”
It got worse
and worse until I felt like a total failure. Then the stomach problems started,
all the stress causing nausea and terrible cramps. The nerves in my gut were
recording what was really true. My stomach couldn’t stomach what a low place I
had allowed myself to go. I really think my stomach may have been smarter than
my brain at this point.
In Chapter
Three of The Maker’s Diet, author Jordan Rubin talks about the nerves in
the GI tract: “There are nearly one hundred million nerve cells in the gut
alone.” Rubin quotes Sandra Blakeslee, a science writer specializing in
cognitive neuroscience: “Each of us literally has two brains—the familiar one encased in our skulls and a
lesser-known but vitally important one found in the human gut.”
Rubin goes
on to say, “Early in our embryogenesis, a collection of tissue called the
“neural crest” appears and divides during fetal development. One part turns
into the central nervous system, and
the other migrates to become the enteric
nervous system. . . . We are still
discovering ways the enteric nervous system mirrors the central nervous system.
Nearly every substance that helps run and control the brain has turned up in the gut!”
The Monday
deadline came and though the mural wasn’t done but it looked pretty darn good.
The big boss took pictures to the meeting and the imminent pressure was off,
but I was still in a lot of agony—mentally, emotionally and physically. It
wasn’t until we moved on to more pressing things that I had the sense of being
totally free. I told God I was sorry I didn’t go to Him first. In my heart I
really let go. Even though it was a desire of my heart to do the mural I had to
be totally willing to just let it go and I did. And you guessed it, the
cramping knot in my gut relaxed and let go too. In a few days my stomach was
totally normal again.
I learned to
put God first and listen to my gut. When I let go, I gave in to God and it all
worked out great. I ended up doing the mural with several friends and it’s now
on the ceiling of the Palazzo on the Las Vegas Strip.
Love,
Carolyn
QUESTIONS FOR PONDERING OR DISCUSSION
1.
Can you think of
a time when a distasteful circumstance ended up registering its effect in your
body? How did you handle it? Did that work for you? Would you do anything
different if a similar circumstance should come up?
2.
Which daily tasks
do you typically handle on your own?
3.
Which tasks or
situations do you typically take to the Lord first?
More great
chapters in my book WINGS: A Journey in
Faith. You can get it from Amazon.
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