This week I’ve been reading 1 Corinthians and, in the spirit of Christmas, I’ve been thinking a lot about giving and receiving, and the importance of each. This one verse really stuck out to me:

1 Corinthians 4:7, “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”

I will tell you what this verse means to me, but first, let me tell you a little bit of my background, so you might better understand my perspective.

I come from a family of six, I have two older sisters and a younger brother. We struggled a lot financially, as my mom stayed home to take care of my brother and me (who both have SMA, and were always sick) and my dad had a hard time holding on to a job. For a short period, the six of us lived together in a tiny little trailer in Escondido, CA. We didn’t have it as bad as other people, but we definitely went through some tough times. Through all of it though, I never felt poor – I never felt the struggle. My needs were always met and I always felt blessed with love.

Back then, and still to this day, I received so much. On a daily basis, I get by on receiving help from others who are kind enough and patient enough to assist me. I am fully (sometimes painfully) aware of the fact that everything I have, everything I am, is because I received it – from family, from friends, from doctors, from teachers, from insurance companies, from the government, from God.

In contemplating this verse, I thought “What does anyone have that they did not receive?” We are all given so much in this beautiful life and many times, I think, we fail to recognize all of our blessings. I think we fail to recognize that our blessings don’t come from ourselves. Every day that we wake up breathing is a gift – not a guarantee. Having a job is a gift that allows you to earn the money to buy the things you need and want – not everyone has that, if you do, you are blessed!

We are accustomed to the luxuries that surround us and they are often taken for granted. We are obsessed with stuff – getting as much as we can in any given situation, and feeling so proud of our accumulation of things.

To me, this verse simply means that all we have – whether material objects, intellectual ability, or spiritual gifts – it was given to us. Nothing we have makes us better than anyone else, for we are all given different gifts for different reasons.

This Christmas, I urge you to take a break from all the consumerism, to think about all you’ve been blessed with, to take the time to truly appreciate your life as it is right now, and give to someone in need.

I love to draw, paint, design — pretty much anything artistic. It makes me feel happy and accomplished to create something that didn’t exist before I imagined it. I like to paint things in a way that is familiar and recognizable, but at the same time I like to show things in a whole new light, using bright colors to emphasize the beauty in this world, and to give the viewer a sense of joy.

With a paintbrush in my hand, and good music filling the spaces around me, I feel completely at peace as I lightly and methodically place brushstroke after brushstroke on the canvas. Nothing else matters, I am completely focused, completely capable.

For awhile, I lost the inspiration to paint. It’s not that I couldn’t do it, I just stopped doing it. I stopped getting that feeling of peace, I no longer felt content. Painting made me feel crippled, it made me feel angry, it made me feel sad.

SMA is cruel that way. The way it takes everything away from you. I stopped painting because my right arm – the one that I still have some use of – started getting weaker. I couldn’t hold it out to reach my easel in the same way that I used to. My hand would get shaky and my arm would flop down out of exhaustion and remain unusable for several minutes.

I would sit with my arm hanging down, not quite ready to ask for help, just thinking. In my frustration, I thought how ridiculous it was that I couldn’t do something as simple as reach my arm out. I thought about what it would be like when I can no longer move at all, when I can no longer breathe on my own. I thought about how and when I would die. I thought about the things I will never experience – love, marriage, building a family of my own. I allowed myself to cry for just a minute.

 

For awhile, SMA won. I let it hold on to a piece of me for way too long before I realized that my whole life has been a series of losses and adaptations. I got through all that happened before and I would get through this. I am stronger than SMA.

The painting above is the first one that I did after my period of adaptation. It took forever, and it was a lot of work! For me, this is a personal best. At 11×14″ it’s much smaller than what I used to do. The smaller size allowed me to work on my lap without having to reach so much. I still used my bright Liquitex colors, but the smaller canvas and smaller brushes allowed me to do so much more detail work.

This painting means so much to me. This ballerina is very much a part of me – or who I wish I was. It is a stormy day, but still so bright and full of beauty. The ballerina is out there, dancing in the wet sand because it is her place of peace. She is not using the umbrella because she is not afraid to get wet, she embraces life as is comes, experiencing all of it.

One day I will be this ballerina.

 

Philippians 4:13.

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