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