This painting was a reflection of praying through surrendering things very special to me but out of reach, or out of my control. And it’s a reflection on being surrounded by beautiful gifts but still craving more with all I’ve got.
It’s so easy when we long for something with all our hearts while not receiving it to assume that God doesn’t value it. But if I value a thing very deeply, or a person, or an experience, there’s a very good chance that God values it very much too. He certainly values my heart and my longing. What if, instead, the aches of our hearts are just so tremendous that the things we long for are small by comparison? What if they are profoundly valuable beyond even what we can see but the ache is so much that they simply couldn’t fill it anyway? The God-sized ache can only be filled with one thing.
I love birds. They are precious and beautiful and free. In this painting, the birds symbolize the treasures in my life that I long for, and the light is the surge of longing coming out of my heart. The birds are of great value, and Jesus is there loving them too. But the heart space can’t be filled to the brim with the birds, because it’s meant to someday be filled with something even more valuable: all of God. In the meantime there will be the ache for more. But also beauty. It’s important not to minimize the beauty of these gifts, but to let them be free and not have to fill the whole ache.
Birds are wildly free creatures. I have to let them fly. I can’t hold them down in my longing for them. But that doesn’t mean they’re not still there, in their own way.
