Persevering

Ahhh...the gold is on. But, not without flaws. However, I am pressing on! I have already outlined most of the drawing with red ochre (no picture yet).

My process with this icon has deepened in so many ways over the last months and has begun to be very significant for me. As many of you know, my mother has taken a turn for the worse with her Alzheimer's and I have been up and down to LA dealing with complications in that. She is no longer walking and has been having a lot of dental issues as well as some skin breakdown on her heel. There is a lot to unpack symbolically in all those developments. One of the primary complications and characteristics of my mom's dementia has always been constant wandering- she no longer has that. When she was a floor nurse, before she went into management, one of her favorite things was creating therapies to heal patients from nursing homes who had encrusted mouths and bed sores- now she is a victim of that herself. And, the dental issues, well, hmmm...I have a lot of dental problems.

Emotionally, I think I have avoided the icon and posting because, it is kind of loaded to me. And, the process has been most recently wrought with mistakes and failure. Charles, Dana (friend and pastor at CWOW) and my prayer partner Loretta have consistently encouraged (and pestered) me to embrace the process with the icon and the connection with praying for my mom and persevering spiritually, emotionally and otherwise through it. Some of my reflections previously are still present but in a deeper more present way. I do not think I would have chosen this to be the icon to work on, but Charles, and behind that God, chose it for me. Mary did not choose her calling to bring Jesus into the world the way He did, to raise him and see him suffer and die even to rise again. (Plus, for a Jewish mom at the time, he said and did a lot of confusing things). My mother did not choose to go the way she is going. Nor, did any of her children. But, God is in it. His mercies are new every morning.

One bible verse I have been meditating on is from John 21:18-19 Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!"

Will my mother's deterioration and even her death in this dementia and our process through this unveil in an unlikely way God's glory? Lord, have mercy. Please pray for me as I persevere in prayer and paint.