Gifts and Abilities

13 days ago, I discovered that I know how to paint. 12 days ago, I started wondering if anyone can pick up a paintbrush and produce a lifelike painting. The last and only art class I ever took was in 8th grade, the year I painted the now infamous shirtless dude in black pants that I found in a sports magazine. He didn't look like a real guy in my painting, though it is quite apparent that I focused a lot of attention on the detail of his abs. I also tried my hand at a painting of my two older sisters when they were about 4 and 5 years old. The little girls I painted look nothing like my sisters, and I remember my frustration over not getting it right. I really enjoyed painting people, but I wasn't good at it. I didn't have the eye and my patience wore pretty quickly. I didn't paint anymore after 8th grade, because I was pretty sure my attempts proved I didn't have the natural gift. I was never one for working hard to become good at something I wasn't naturally gifted at doing. I was naturally athletic, which carried me through about 9th grade, and then others worked harder and surpassed my abilities. That still didn't motivate me to become a better athlete than I naturally was. I got straight A's through high school and continued to do well in college until about halfway through my sophomore year when I didn't bother trying to make myself a better student upon realizing that my study skills were severely lacking. My life is a book about a kid with gifts she took advantage of and boosters she didn't build upon. "Free-spirited" as my grandmother may say I am, I don't take a challenge head-on.

As of right now, I have finished one painting, I'm doing touch-ups on another, and I have a third one in the beginning stages. Somewhere over the course of these past seven years since 8th grade, I somehow acquired a gift for painting that I definitely did not used to have. I don't know what sort of developmental pattern brought me here, but this has been the coolest and most fun discovery I've made about myself in a while.

I'm not sure why this gift has suddenly sprung to my attention, but it has got me thinking about how much I'm like that little greedy girl with a mound of gifts. Once she opens one, she tosses it to the side in anticipation of the next, and once the stack is gone, she's finished with every gift and waits for the thrill of the next great holiday that'll bring more gifts. So I figure being gifted by God in a certain area isn't something you're truly grateful for until you use that gift and develop it for the glory of God. At least that's true for me. It's something I mull over while I'm painting.

Here's a painting I did Friday morning before I headed up to Stafford for my friend Molly's birthday party. It's of her brother and her the day before she went off to study abroad in Hong Kong. :)