Since the passing of my son, two and a half years ago, art has continued to be a source of comfort and healing. So many tears have been shed as I’ve worked through grief, taking it from my soul and releasing it on the canvas. This kind of art therapy has led to a small collection of paintings that I’ve recently completed.

I did a painting a couple years ago entitiled, “Leaving Eden”. This painting is the follow up to that one. After Adam and Eve left the garden, God told them that the ground would be “cursed” and begin to bring forth “Thorns also and thistles” (Genesis 3: 18) and that all this would be for their “sakes”. Well if our summer in Ensenada was our Eden, then the following September was definitely our hard crash into the land of thistles and thorns. I learned what sorrow really was. I learned the vast chasm of emotion that comes with parenthood. I learned that only when you have truly loved, can you truly know sorrow.

So many times I found myself looking up to heaven, as I imagine Adam and Eve did, wondering, “What do I do now? I don’t understand why you had to send me through this particular path. I don’t know why you would want me to hurt so much. But I trust you, and I’m here. So help me know where to go.”

I do believe that all the trials we go through are for our “sakes”. I do believe that we are here on earth to gain wisdom and experience, and some things you can only learn by going through them. I still don’t know all the reasons why God felt it necessary to take my little boy home, but I know someday it will all be made clear, and in the meantime I just have to keep looking to heaven and walking by faith. And really, this constant reaching for God really has made me stronger, my soul deeper, and has brought a new kind of maturity. My soul feels older now, like God asked my spirit to grow up a little, and I think in the growing I came to know and understand Him a little more in the process.

So I thank God for bringing me out of Eden, if it meant one step closer to Him.