By Amy Butler
My oldest son is a very gifted artist. There is much wondering about exactly how and why this is the case, given his genetics. Nevertheless, he produces some incredible work. Watching him learn his craft at a local magnet program, even I have picked up some art knowledge (if not talent).
For one thing, I’ve learned that something called “negative space” is very important when creating a piece of art. This is the space on the canvas or paper, my son explained, in which you do not apply your medium — you leave it blank. These blank areas can then become critical parts of the piece, because they very effectively provide contrast. Rather than just empty places, turns out the negative space can sometimes make the whole piece.
I was thinking about negative space this week over the Thanksgiving holiday. In our family growing up, we always went around the table at Thanksgiving and told each other those things for which we were thankful. It’s a tradition a lot of families have, I know, but it has become a regular part of my Thanksgiving even when I don’t get to celebrate with my family.
So I spent some time last Thursday thinking about what I feel thankful for this year. The list didn’t surprise me; it was the standard stuff. Family, church, health — you know, the usual.
What really surprised me was how very deep the gratitude felt to me this year.
It’s been a really tough year for me; lots of grief and pain and transition. I wondered when I started my list of things to be thankful for whether I would be able to feel gratitude at all, even though I know I am extraordinarily blessed.
I was taken aback, then, at the depth and substance of the gratitude I felt on Thursday. It was so overwhelming I could barely get my mind around it; it was so tangible it almost felt like something I could hold in my hands. I felt so grateful for all of those things I listed, in fact, that the feelings almost took my breath away.
And that’s when I started to think about my budding artist and his lessons to me about negative space. Maybe my life is like a piece of art; and maybe the negative space of pain and grief — the places where God seems most absent — help me to see the considerable gifts of my life more clearly.
Sure, it’s heart-warming to sit around the Thanksgiving dinner table reciting all the things we’re thankful for in the years when life seems good. When you can see your life in relief, though, the experience becomes more than heart-warming. You know, in the very depths of your heart, what’s important. You can see the truth about your life far more clearly than you ever could before. You know, deeply and truly, the love of others. And maybe for the first time ever, you know the ways in which all the gifts of your life have been more than Thanksgiving dinner-conversation starters; they have, in so many ways, saved your life. They saved my life.
For seeing my life in relief and knowing in new ways how much I have to say “thank you” for … I’m adding that to the list of blessings this year, too. This year, so much more, I am deeply and truly grateful.