The Painting; The Reminder of Who I Am.

I love art. I love that art can be expressed in writing, in dancing, in music, and in pictures and paintings. Art is my safe haven. I first learned to turn to dance. Dance was my outlet, my therapy, its where I went for healing. Dance is amazing alone, but the part I loved the most was finding a song that spoke to me, the spoke the things I was feeling AND THEN creating movement to double express what was deep inside. Dance and music is what got me through junior high and high school. Its what helped me cope with my moms divorce. Its what motivated me to keep going. Its what made me believe that regardless of my circumstances and trials, my life is MINE. Its what helped me to stand tall and be different even when I was alone. Dance was my best friend when no one else was. Dance was my everything. 


April 2015, I had to leave my dance competition with only 2 dances left to perform to go to the emergency room to get an emergency procedure done. For one month after that I couldn't dance, I couldn't even go to school. I sat at home and I didn't know where to turn. Dance couldn't be there for me at this point. It had always been my go to. This is when I started to draw. April 2015 is when I drew my first picture, the one of the aztec lion. 

This lion picture was the beginning of a new way for me to find peace and to express and motivate myself. Sometime around there I also started this blog. I loved journaling and I loved sharing my experiences with others, but I was never, and I am still not super consistent with my writing. But this post's purpose is to reunite all of the arts in which I love together.

I am going to tell the story of the Rose Painting.

 I painted this picture at 4:00 in the morning. I'm not much of a early riser, but I do stay up extremely late. For some reason the late hours are when I feel most inspired and in tune with my thoughts. The story behind this painting comes in parts. A few small stories told separately and then tied together at the end. So bare with me.

I am a Difference Maker

PART I
 February of 2017 was a really hard month for me. I was living and serving in London as a full-time missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I had been on my mission for about one year and I had absolutely loved every second of the mission. This transfer I found out that I would have to return home from my mission to get surgery. (If you want to know more about that read this post http://taylorannsmiddy.blogspot.com/2017/02/an-english-breakfast.html )

 But when it rains, it pours, right? Finding out I would be returning home wasn't the only thing that made this transfer hard. My companion and I, heck our whole zone, got what I like to refer to as "the plague." There was a full day where only one companionship, in our whole zone, left their flat. (Which is extremely rare.) We were so sick. During the time of "the plague" we did everything we could to keep working and serving. On one particular day we were at the church planning and creating a training that we would soon be giving. We were playing some of the gospel music that was downloaded on the missionaries user account. 
That day I found a song to this day is my FAVOURITE song ever.

It goes..


Yeah, isn't it amazing how a man can find himself alone?
Call into the darkness for an answer that's he's never known
Yeah, isn't it amazing how a God can take a broken man
Yeah, let him find a fortune, let him ruin it with his own two hands?

And he climbs on up the hill
On the rock on which he stands
He looks back at the crowd
And he looks down at his hands and he says
I am a difference maker

Oh, I am the difference maker
Oh, I am the only one that speaks to him
I am the friendliest of friends of God

This song quickly became my "party rock anthem. My companion and I listened to is multiple times every day for the rest of that transfer. Better yet, I think this song became our saving grace. That transfer was hard, like REALLY hard. We both knew I would be going home, we were both sick, AND we had been teaching MULTIPLE MIRACULOUS PEOPLE, who would randomly block our numbers. It was heart-wrenching. We didn't understand it. This song reminded us that even though we felt like we were downing in the trials raining down on us, WE WERE MAKING A DIFFERENCE. We shouted this song on the top of our lungs at times. We had faith that even though we couldn't see the difference, as long as we gave EVERYTHING to God, it was their. 


PART II
 Coming home this song became even more of a saving grace for me. I listened to it on repeat over and over and over again. I think the hardest part about coming home is that no one around you understands, they try, but they don't get it. I walked into the chapel that first Sunday home and I cried because people stared at me like I was a failure, a sinner, a quitter. No one in that chapel or in my hometown would ever understand that my returning home early WAS NOT my will, it was God's. I had done everything in my power to align my will with God's will and it took me the whole year I served to do it. I felt as if I was the friendliest of friends of God, just as the song says, and I knew that coming home was what he needed me to do. But every time someone asked, "So when are you going back to your mission?" and I answered, "I'm not." Then they looked at me with a disappointed look on their face, it crushed me. 

 This song reminded me that I AM A DIFFERENCE MAKER! Even as an early-returned missionary! 

PART III
 Through every trial I often stop to ask myself, "how does Heavenly Father feel about me right now?" I stop and think about my whole life and I strongly believe. No, I KNOW that God sent me down to this Earth to be the only member in my family, to be the fatherless daughter, to be the early-returned missionary, etc. BECAUSE HE KNEW I WAS STRONG ENOUGH. He knew that I could come and change the pattern of my past. He knew that I could be the strong link in my family. He knew that I could be the difference maker. 

I AM A DIFFERENCE MAKER

The Little Prince

PART I

 My senior year of high school in my AP English class, we were assigned to read a book called, "The Little Prince". This is probably the only assigned book I have read cover to cover since... well my whole life. To this day this is the only book that I own. (Reading, especially in classroom settings has never been one of my strengths. I will write a whole other blog post about that soon.) The Little Prince was different than most of the books we were assigned in that class. It had pictures, it was short, and it was childish. I loved it. 

The common theme of The Little Prince is that all grown-ups were once children … but only few of them remember it.

There is an article that I love that explains the hidden meaning of The Little Prince I will attach the link, because I love the article (https://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/the-hidden-meaning-of-life-according-to-the-little-prince)

The Little Prince talks about how life is depended on your perspective of it. I like to think that he gives credit to the beauty of a child's perspective of life. They have truly mastered the art of life being what you make it. They can turn the most ordinary stick into the most extraordinary magic wand. 

There is a lot of symbolism used in the book. Each character plays a crucial role in the book. The character I want to mention is the Rose. She doesn't appear often in the book, but she is what keeps the Prince desiring to go back to his planet. The Little Prince is so invested in taking care of the Rose. What I love about this is that the Rose may be common and ordinary to everyone else, but to the Little Prince she is unique and irreplaceable. 
 

PART II
Now there are few different kinds of childish.
1. Childlike Behaviour- This is the one that most people think of when you hear the word childish. You think of a person you isn't quite wise enough to make thorough thought out decisions. You think of your little sibling who bites and kicks when they are angry because tho don't quite understand how to control their emotions. You think of young in age and physical stature. 

2. Childlike Heart- I like to believe that this is when you never lose your creativity, your imagination, your ability to dream big and escape this world and let go, be free. Think of how easy it was as a child to entertain yourself. You could turn a stick into the coolest magic wand or maybe that stick was a horse. It depended on the day. You lived the most adventurous life because you could make the best of any situation or circumstance. Your could turn it into whatever you wanted it to be.

3. Childlike Spirit- Think of the innocence of a child. The way that they can see the best in every soul. The way they are willing to learn. They are curious, unbiased, welcoming, trusting without agenda, eager for the next adventure.

I liked The Little Prince because its a story of a grown-up meeting its inner child. I love the idea of everyone keeping their inner child alive. I love the humility and ability to just live everyday in the moment that children have. 

PART III
 I am the biggest child at heart. I am the kind of person who goes on a hike and pretends I am in The Hunger Games running through the mountains. I feel like, and I think my mom would agree, I am a free spirit. I like to live life day by day, making the best of every single moment. I like to stay up all night playing in a blanket fort that we name "Bear Bunka" *say in a British accent*. I am forgiving and I always assume people of the best of intentions. I see the best in people who have hurt me time and time again. I give 12 too many chances to those who have hurt me because I always assume that this time they will change.

I feel like I have been programmed this way. I have always been an imaginative dreamer. As a little girl I was always dreaming of my dad changing and becoming the best dad in the world, to this day I haven't lost that dream. I am a dreamer. I am forgiving. I am a little naive when people are manipulative. I am a child. 

The Rose

PART I

  There is a lot of symbolism used in the book, The Little Prince. Each character plays a crucial role in the book. The character I want to mention is the Rose. She doesn't appear often in the book, but she is what keeps the Prince desiring to go back to his planet. The Little Prince is so invested in taking care of the Rose. What I love about this is that the Rose may be common and ordinary to everyone else, but to the Little Prince she is unique and irreplaceable.

Two months ago I painted this picture and posted it with this quote,

“I will not be another flower picked for my beauty and left to die. I will be wild, difficult to find, and impossible to forget.”

I had just experienced yet another stormy trail and I found myself struggling to understand my worth clearly. I could not even look in the mirror and say "I am a daughter of God and he loves me." 

I had to remember that I couldn't allow myself to lose sight of who I was. I had to remind myself that among  all the other flowers in the garden I am UNIQUE. I am like the Rose in The Little Prince. My worth is not dependent on what others think of me. My worth is not dependent on my career choices, my job, my school, my marital status, my hair color, my weight, or whatever else our minds talk ourselves into believing it is. 

PART II
 I love symbolism. After I painted the painting above I started to shut out the lies I was allowing myself to believe. I unfollowed all, but 30 people on my Instagram, I deleted nearly every picture, I was distancing myself from the unhealthy place I was in by comparing myself to the girls on my feed. I left it all and I began to understand who I was to the one that matters most, God. I turned only trying to be what he has taught me to be. 

I learned that I AM A BEAUTIFUL ROSE! I have thorns and weaknesses, just as every rose does. Thorns and all, I am beautiful. I decided from that day on I would not see myself for my weaknesses alone, but rather I would recognize the thorns and see my potential, remember my strength, thrive on my progress. I would only allow myself to be treated like the beautiful Rose. Anyone, including myself, who turns me into a thorn bush alone needs to be cut off, let go. 

We are ALL BEAUTIFUL ROSES who deserve to be seen as the Rose even in the ugliest of storms! Even they may have been pricked by your thorns. You are still a beautiful Rose. 

The Painting

 This painting has the deepest meaning to me of all the paintings I have ever painted. Each detail is hand selected for specific reasons. A rose to remind me of my worth. To help me to be strong in my vision of who I am and how I should be treated. Most of you look at the painting and think Beauty and the Beast, but this Rose is modeled after the Little Prince's Rose. The purple is the background of the Little Prince's planet where the rose lives. I chose the Little Prince's Rose because I feel it represents the Childlike Spirit that I am. Which helps me to make sure that my childlike spirit doesn't become a weakness in which causes me to be TOO naive and mistreated and weak. It helps me to remember to be BRAVE and COURAGEOUS in standing up for myself and who I am. And finally, the lettering reading, "I am a Difference Maker" because it reminds me of my purpose here on this Earth. It reminds me that God knows I am strong enough to go through the trials I experience. 

I am a difference maker. 

I am a beautiful rose.

I am a child.