Rosilind - Student of Grace, Pursuer of Love

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I sometimes struggle to think of my self as an artist.

I’ve called myself an artist many times because I am musical, have studied music nearly all of my life, but have often felt like I’m a party-crasher and really don’t belong to the artist world.

I don’t draw (no one wants me to draw them a picture) and I don’t write music. I am not even really that good of a musician – if I’m honest.

But I write.

I do have one tried-and-true mark of an artist, though, and that is my deep, deep capability to feel….and feel deeply. More deeply that I should – admittedly.

If hindsight is 20/20, I’d probably have to say that my battle with adrenal fatigue is largely due to the fact that I feel life on such a deep level that I rarely know how to handle the tsunami of emotion that crashes over me in waves so fast and deep that it’s almost impossible to catch my breath.

And knowing what I know about myself….and the deep, deep messyness most artists land themselves in, it’s easy to see how they’ve found coping mechanisms and escapes from the deep emotion they feel….most in destructive ways.

I know I’ve been there….and I know that I can easily point to escape mechanisms I have now that I have begun to deal with — things that help to turn off the emotions for me, because I need to be able to deal with life without falling apart.

It’s both a blessing and a curse to be an artist.

I will admit, I’ve been very critical of today’s worship and worship artists (I won’t link to those articles, because I don’t want to draw attention to them).

I grew up in the burgeoning days of Contemporary Christian Music…it was a wild time steeped in controversy and skepticism.

Decades have gone by, and there have been scandals, divorces, affairs, addictions… they left fans hurt, disillusioned, and angry.

I was one who was all of those — watching artists I admired self-destruct.

But with age comes wisdom….and as we walk our own road, we realize that no life is untouched by trouble. All of us are human, and we all stumble and fall.

Look at the “Hall of Faith” in Hebrews 11, and you’ll find quite the motely crew.

None of them were without fault — some of them did things that would get us permanently excommunicated from our church.

And yet, they had a passion for God…..Our God who had made a covenant with them, a covenant He remained faithful to, even when they were not faithful to Him.

And that is grace.

I began my blog in 2010 – and it wasn’t very long after that I went through a very difficult time emotionally.

The battle was excruciating.

I was lonely. Disillusioned. Hurt. Bitter. Broken. And I didn’t know who to turn to….who to talk to.

There were toxic emotions that I felt so deeply, that I was afraid of even voicing them — for fear of offending God so deeply with words that there would be no going back from there.

But I never gave up the fight.

I knew one thing was for certain – giving up was no option. I would go through the fire and the flood — and God’s promise was sure, that the fire would not consume me and the flood would not drown me.

No matter how deep the raw, bitter, toxic, and overwhelming emotions were — God’s power to rescue me and take me through safely to the other side was more powerful!

And thus began my journey into grace.

To be sure — some of my posts during that time wandered into to the extreme. I even had to take some of them down the further I went into my journey because they, frankly, were not theologically correct.

And that’s just part of the journey of learning and growing.

I’m still on that journey.

Just the other day, in a moment of deep, overwhelming, and powerful emotion – I did something I rarely do, and haven’t done for a very long time — I got onto social media and ranted hard.

I hit “post” when I should have left it as a draft and slept on it.

I forgot grace and dove straight into judgement and a critical spirit…just as I have a few times here on A Little R & R.

Dear sisters, we are living in a time of polarism.

The church has been polarized on so many topics that are purely opinion and personal conviction. And please know: I am not talking about issues that Scripture clearly addresses, such as homosexuality, abortion, safe sex, and other moral, biblical issues.

I’m talking about COVID, vaccines, how we approach racial reconciliation, and the latest: the war in Ukraine.

As you have probably guessed by my pinned post, and the several videos I’ve uploaded to my YouTube channel, our church is aiding in relocating Ukrainian refugees.

I have been helping directly with this.

But I have friends who have very different opinions.

What has become clear to me in all of this is: As a church, we still haven’t got it right.

And by “we” I also mean me.

We still haven’t learned grace. We still haven’t learned love. We still haven’t learned to bear all things, believe all things, and hope all things.

We still haven’t learned to bear with each other’s messiness…with each other’s brokenness….with each other’s flaws.

We still haven’t learned to believe the best about each other – giving each other the benefit of the doubt that maybe….just maybe….they didn’t mean it the way it sounded, or seemed to us in that post that we’re struggling to read between the lines.

(I personally don’t read between the lines very well. I come from the Northwest part of the U.S. where we just say what we mean and mean what we say and don’t package and candy-coat and put bows and ribbons on.)

We still haven’t learned to hope all things – knowing that the Holy Spirit is working on all of us at some part in our life. Maybe we think He should work on a flaw we see in someone, but by His divine wisdom, He’s chosen to work on another area first.

And so by failing to bear, believe, and hope with one another – we fail to show the world we’re His disciples by our love for one another.

I want to do this better, y’all! I really do!

I know – I haven’t been terribly active here. I’ve been reposting a lot — despite my resolution last year to not do that.

I haven’t been putting out the Bible studies I’d promised.

I have a great timeline for those Bible studies, and haven’t stuck with it.

I’ve been doing a lot of YouTube videos, while battling, and struggling, and contemplating where I’m going with everything: my channel, my blog, my newsletter, my social media….and I’ve had no direction whatsoever.

My life is changing again: I talk about that in the video below.

And I do believe, this change is going to send me right back here — I think a lot of the thoughts and questions and contemplations I’ve been mulling on will be coming out in new, very raw and authentic content — like this post.

I hope I haven’t rambled too much.

This is not the type of post I’m accustomed to writing….but I knew I needed to write — and while I almost abandoned and deleted this post while writing it, I’ve gotten this far and I know it needs to be posted.

Dear sisters: I’ll leave with this:

Over the weekend, I saw a lot of blog posts calling out those who believe that Good Friday is a “thing”, that we’re foolish for believing that Friday is 3 days to Sunday.

I’ve seen a lot of shaming Christians who dye eggs with their kids and do Easter baskets.

As always, there are those who believe we shouldn’t celebrate Easter at all (or at the very least, call it Easter) because it’s pagan.

The same thing happens at Christmas and Halloween.

Forgetting the Paul admonished us not to get caught up on stuff like this — it’s not essential. It’s divisive and dilutes our love.

There are things we should hold hard and fast to:

I don’t regret my post about Redeeming Love for a moment — I hold hard and fast to that, because I believe what I wrote was not opinion, but biblical principle.

But when it comes to opinion and personal conviction, we must learn to have grace for each other and above all show love – because that’s what we’re called to as God’s church.

Especially those of us who are deep, deep feelers — and who tend to allow our feelings to trump relationships.

And to close, I will say: One thing I’m learning that helps me diffuse the tsunami of emotion that swells over me each day – threatening at times to choke the very air I breathe – is sitting in the silence of God’s presence.

The Word says in many places to rest in God, to come to Jesus and take on His burden and yoke — and that’s for a reason.

Coming to Christ and resting in Him is the greatest place to ease the turbulence we artists face.

So, if you related to my struggle, here’s the answer.

It’s not found in self-medicating, yoga, transcendental meditation, distraction through digital noise, movies, and binging our favorite show….food, a bottle of wine….or any other thing but resting in Christ.

Until next time…

Rosilind….student of grace, pursuer of love

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Rosilind

Owner at A Little R & R

Rosilind, a Pacific Northwest native, is a missionary living in Croatia and married to her Bosnian hero. Together they live in the country with their 2 active boys where she enjoys fruity candles and a hot cup of herbal tea on a blustery fall evening. She holds an Associates of Practical Theology and is passionate about discipling and encouraging women. Her passion for writing led her to author a number of Bible studies. She is the author of A Little R & R where she encourages women to live for the glory ofGod. She leads an online Bible study affiliated with Good Morning Girls. You can find her on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube.

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