Art for comfort

I've been having off and on days when I feel like depression is threatening and have been trying to treat it in whatever way I can with healing activities. Yesterday I felt insecure, like I used to feel as a child. Why does that happen to me? Maybe I need some counseling.

I remember well one day when I was a seven-year old at a health treatment center (where I had to stay for six traumatic weeks - away from my family). I had accidentally gotten locked up in a bathroom and was left behind when all the other children went for a walk in the forest. I panicked and yelled and screamed and cried. A nurse heard me and let me out. As I cried bitterly, she comforted me and took me to a table by a bright window. There she set me to drawing and coloring. I will never forget how I felt and how doing the creative work helped me through this time.

So now when I'm feeling a bit down - or insecure as I did yesterday - I feel like that child once more as I draw and paint. Creative work is a wonderful healer. And I have something to show for it at the end.

The drawing I posted here is partially copied from another drawing as an exercise. It's set in my native country, Holland. I'd like to post some more original work but my husband has to hook my scanner up to the computer first. Currently I most enjoy - and have the most success - drawing European street scenes with India ink and then painting them with watercolors. I can do them because they involve straight lines and I can handle those. I've been working from photographs my husband took earlier this year.

A soul at peace

Things have come together. I no longer feel so dizzy and stressed. And I'm sure it's all because we had a Living Room meeting this afternoon. How therapeutic that group is for me, even if I am the leader - probably because I am the leader! I get so much out of doing this work. The feeling of joy and peace I have after meetings never ceases to amaze me.

In my small sharing group today the members talked about a lot of pain. It was intense. We felt for each other; there were tears. But at the end of the meeting we prayed and gave it all to God. I went home feeling at peace. I hope the others sensed that peace as well.

That's the beauty of faith-based support. Not only do we support each other, God is there with us. God is part of the picture. We talk about our faith and we talk about our doubts, but we all accept each other - wherever we are. No one judges. At Living Room we can be real with each other and express our joys and pains. This open sharing is healing.

I am excited about having finished the manual to help other Living Rooms get started. I know it will be a powerful tool, helping other churches see the value of such a group and showing them how to set one up. Forming a Living Room group gives churches an opportunity to respond to Christ's call to love and help people in need, people who are all too often shunned in the community. Having such a group in the church is a good way to help build understanding within its congregation. It will help make mental illness a more acceptable topic of conversation, reducing the stigma that exists.

If you are reading this and feel moved to consider such a group for your church, please let me know. For a very reasonable cost (haven't figured it out yet, but it would be under $10, just covering cost for mailing) I could forward you a copy of this twelve-page manual. It will explain all you need to know. The manual includes a letter from my pastor, testifying to the importance of Living Room in our own church's ministry. If interested, you can email me at info@candidsbymarja.com.

My next job will be to write a manual on how to be a Living Room facilitator. And after that, a booklet of sample devotionals to use at meetings.

Play as comfort for the soul

I thank everyone who commented on my last post. You are encouraging me to keep on with my new painting hobby.

Over the last few days I've been thinking of how comforting creative activity can be. I remember times in my life when it was very much soul food for me.

When I was seven years old I was sent away from my home in Amsterdam to stay at a place we called a "colony." This was an institution in the countryside for city children who were unhealthy. Here we stayed for six weeks while the nurses tried to fatten us up by feeding us lots of starchy foods - lots of bread. Parents were only allowed to visit half way through this six week period. I stayed in one of these places two years in a row.

It was a traumatic time for me, a shy little girl who found it hard to be away from home. I remember the nurse's harsh command to us at bedtime to lie facing the same direction, a ploy to keep us from talking. I remember the shrill yelling at me to get into the shower in the steamy institutional bathroom where we had all lined up naked. "Get in there! Now!" I was terribly frightened, since I had only taken baths in our zinc washtub at home. I was afraid of the hot water splashing all over my face.

One day I got locked into the bathroom by accident while everyone else went out for a walk. I panicked. Here I was, all alone, with no one to hear me. I cried and screamed. Finally, someone did come and let me out. This nurse was kind and compassionate. She got me settled at a table by a window with some coloring pencils and paper. Here, with the warm sunshine pouring down on me, I enjoyed a peaceful hour by myself, looked after by someone who cared about my feelings. That was one of the few enjoyable times I had in that place.

Throughout my adult life, ever since I first got sick at the age of nineteen, I have turned to creative activity to help me through depressions and to keep depression at bay. The solace of quiet playing with paints, photoshop, or embroidery thread restores me. Making something beautiful with my heart and hands is powerful medicine. It feeds my soul.