Despair – X,  detail. Acrylic on canvas, size: 10 x 10 inches

Despair – O, detail.  Acrylic on canvas, size: 10 x 10 inches

Despair is black.

DESPAIR is in all capital letters. 

Despair filled my thoughts. I felt hopeless.

My smile was cut out of a magazine and pasted on my face;  pretending  life was fine.

“How are you?”

“Fine.”

I wasn’t fine.

I was black.

The canvases I had painted with bright colors I covered  in black paint. I stabbed the canvas with a steak knife.  The paintings  called Hugs and Kisses had become Despair X and Despair O.

The back of the painting, Despair X.

The back of the painting, Despair O.

On a Sunday morning  at the end of the church service, I walked up to the front of the room and asked for someone to pray for me.

He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds. Psalm 147:3

The black paintings remind me of where I was; brokenhearted, without hope.

I don’t have to hide behind a smile.  The colors on the canvas are not covered by black paint.  My wounds are bound;  He healed my broken heart.

I am red.

Hugs and Kisses 2, detail. Acrylic on canvas, size: 20 x 20 inches