Spiritual Growth

Self-confidence

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment
Copyright Tammy Cardwell 2014
Copyright Tammy Cardwell 2014

The portrait you’re looking at took me so long to complete that the one who commissioned it could have had a baby while she waited. Why did it take me so ridiculously long to finish such a simple piece? Was I so overbooked with commissions that my pencil couldn’t fly fast enough?

Hardly.

This commission came in while I was working on a special piece for an auction. The image, which happened to be of Jesus, had been in my head for years and I was excited to draw it. The auction supports great ministries, and I was thrilled to be able to contribute. Everything was going perfectly. The wood of the cross looked awesome. The clothing draped just right. The hands were amazing. and then I got to the head and face; these were my undoing. No matter how hard I worked, how much I reworked, I simply could not get it right. And then I ran out of time.

I “finished” the drawing, but even as I took it to the framer I was ashamed of it. It wasn’t just bad; it was humiliatingly, publicly bad. That it sold for less than I’d paid to have it framed was no surprise; I was glad it brought anything at all – and hoped that everyone would forget I’d produced anything so regrettable.

I have no idea how many pencil portraits I’ve done through the years, but I’ve drawn enough that I feel confident in saying I’m good at what I do. Even so, this whole experience shattered my self-confidence. the wise thing would have been to pick my pencils right back up and start on something else – anything else – but I didn’t. It was many months before I could bring myself to even pull out my supplies. Admittedly, laziness and procrastination were factors in the delay, but they were fed by fear of failure.

Strange as it may seem, I share this story to encourage you. How many singers have had their confidence hammered after blowing the National Anthem on the Little League field? How many young dancers have been ready to quit after going left while everyone else danced gracefully to the right? How many aspiring thespians have considered switching to Botany after mangling a monologue? It happens to the best of us.

Sometimes, hopefully most of the time, we’re able to stand back up, brush ourselves off, and get back to it. Then there are the times when we lie there, paralyzed for a while before something gives us the strength to rise again.

Swiftly or slowly (Swiftly is so much better!), the key is to DO IT. When hit with such a blow, we need to be like David who, after discovering the destruction at Ai, encouraged himself (1 Sam 30:6) and managed to get up and do the next thing – and he recovered all that had been lost. Fear is a terrible enemy, but we can conquer it. YOU can!

I’m not proud of how long it took me to complete this portrait. I am, however, proud of the work; it is every bit as good as I knew (somewhere inside) it could be. I am also grateful for the amazing patience of the friend who commissioned it, and for the vitally important lesson I’ve learned once again.

“Down” is not someplace anyone wants to be, especially over something so absurd. I’ve decided that, should such a thing happen again, I will take a page from David’s book and encourage myself (or read myself the Riot Act). I have to; there’s another picture waiting to be drawn!

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Slow Down!

Tammy M Cardwell1 Comment

Hello. My name is Tammy Cardwell, and I move too fast.

I have moved too fast most of my life. In school, I learned that moving quickly from class to class gave me more time to read. This began a habit of walking fast that still gets me in trouble today as my shorter friends and relatives have to call out from somewhere behind me, “Slow down!” Truly, unless I’m on a deserted road in the country, intentionally idling away the time, I forget there is a such a word as “amble.”

All of which is bad enough, but when you hear God calling out, “Slow down,” as I have, you know you’ve gone beyond a lack of courtesy and are veering into dangerous territory.

He reminded me, recently, that it is those who wait upon the Lord that renew their strength. Too often, I listen to one part of what He says and move forward without hearing Him out completely. This is something I do to people as well, and I assure all of you that I really am working on it!

So, in a recent conversation, God reminded me that it is the warrior who waits to hear everything his superior has to say that is strengthened for battle, and the server who waits to hear everything his customer has to say that is strengthened for service.

It’s bad enough when my friends have to tell me to slow down. It’s far worse when it’s God sitting there, patiently waiting for me to return and actually hear Him out so that I can be strengthened for what lies ahead.

So if you hear me muttering, “Slow down, Tammy.” Don’t worry about me talking to myself. I’m just reminding me before someone else has to.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C

Those People

Tammy M CardwellLeave a comment

Everyone seems to have a few of “those people” in their lives. You know the ones I mean. They’re the paranoid person who constantly complains about all of the plots people are hatching against them, the OCD person who has to carefully script every conversation, the one who is always asking for your help but never offering theirs even when they can clearly see you need it… It seems they have only one things in common; they can rub you raw… and if they’re Christians, they can REALLY rub you raw.

The Word of God says, in Proverbs 27:17, that “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.” When I said they rub you raw? There is a reason. God often puts people like this in our lives for this very purpose, to teach us what it is to truly love as He loves.

It is easy to love those who treat us well, who love us the way we expect to be loved or at least behave the way we expect them to act. That type of love is good, but if we aspire to love like Jesus loved, we must go further – a lot further. One step along that path is to learn to love “those people” – to genuinely feel compassion for the one who is so consumed with paranoia that all of their conversations center around the enemies that surround them. True love listens, true love responds by encouraging them in the Lord and giving them the Word of God to stand on, and true loves prays for them with a heart that genuinely cares for their well-being. Yes, frustration may enter in – we see in Scripture that even God got frustrated on occasion – but true love responds as God is inclined to respond, with mercy and compassion.

If we genuinely wish to learn to love as God loves, we should thank Him for putting those people into our lives and let Him use them to push us closer to Him.

Celebrating Jesus!
Tammy C