My art got rejected from an art show today because it was deemed too dangerous. You see, I made a piece out of multicolored glass. Exploding through the glass came a fist. I named it You Got Heart-Breaking Through Walls of Fear.

My artist statement talked about how walls come in many shapes and sizes…like the colored glass. These walls of fear can keep our lives small and stuck in a boring comfort zone. Walls around our hearts keep us from sharing who we really are, and fearing rejection we retreat and remain alone. But like the fist punching through the walls of fear, we can choose to break free! Alone, that is very difficult. But with the strength of Christ in our hearts and faithful friends and family cheering us on, all things are possible. You got heart. Choose to break free!

My sister is an artist. I called to tell her about my art rejection and how sad I felt. I didn’t know if anyone was on the line because it was so quiet, which is quite unusual for my sister. Little did I know her mouth was agape and she just couldn’t believe it and therefore no sound was coming out. Then she starting laughing and could not stop!

Finally she said, “Don’t you see the irony here? They were looking in the face of a piece of art called ‘You Got Heart-Breaking Through Walls of Fear’ and then rejected it because they had the fear that it was too dangerous! Don’t you see how funny that is? The message was looking right at them in the face, literally punching through right at them and they either didn’t see it or chose to remain stuck in it.”

Wow…that is weird. How many messages do I miss that are right in front of my face? How many do you miss? Sure, I feel sad that my art got rejected. A little mad, too. Like what was it going to do, jump off the wall and stab someone in the face? But I am going to ponder the bigger message here. I don’t know quite what that is yet. But I do think that it is something that my piece of art on breaking through walls of fear got rejected because someone had fear that it would cause injury. I guess like my sister said, that is kind of funny!

Jane Birr

Life Coach

Living on Purpose

www.janebirr.com

janiebirr@gmail.com