Word: standing
For this update, I want to share a bit about this past weekend and the time we have had in between countries. We left Romania on Thursday morning (10/4) to get into a van and travel south into Bulgaria. We arrived into Sofia, Bulgaria (the capital) in the afternoon with our whole squad. The purpose of the weekend all together was to reflect on these first two months, rest and celebrate the time we have had all together as a squad. The weekend looked a bit like our time in Brasov, Romania in schedule, but had a bit less structure and it was shorter. We attended a session in the morning and a session in the evening taught on specific topics from the squad leaders and some squad mates! We learned about things like processing and the purpose of reflection, what is sabbath, and comparison. Other than this, we had all day to explore the city!
So I got researching! Some of the fun things I did this weekend included…
– the Alexander Nevsky cathedral, a huge church and one of the most well known sights in Bulgaria
– strolling along Vitoshka walking street
– finding fun statues to imitate
– wandering around the national art gallery
– eating at Villa Rosiche, an amazing hole in the wall bakery!
– seeing a movie in English and feeling like I am home in the US!
– visiting the museum of socialist art showing the history of the communist era in Bulgaria
– checking out a fun retro- communist era bar called Rakia Reketa Bar
– visiting the Sofia history museum!
The weekend was amazing. I enjoyed the time with the squad and I loved getting to see some of the iconic things in Sofia! I mean, I might only be here once right?
The reason for the title of my blog is related to one particular spot that I visited this weekend. When visiting the art gallery, I wanted to spice things up, so I asked my friend to find a painting that they see themselves in and explain why. I did the same. I chose two paintings (shown below). The first is a portrait of a woman named Ana Petrova. This stuck out to me because I was just drawn to the woman’s strength and gentleness. She appeared strong and self assured in her eyes and posture while also gentle and fragile in the pursing of her lips and her soft eyes.
I wandered into another room where I saw a painting titled “Standing.” I related to this one as well. It was not too dark but not too light. I loved the red, yellow and black in the picture. To me it seemed strong and hopeful. I liked the black in the painting because it represented sadness and darkness in my life, but it almost looked like the color was beginning to cover up the black. I connected it to myself because I feel that today I am standing. I am not down or defeated, I am up and standing. Some days I do not feel that I have the capacity to do much more than stand. Some days I feel that all I can really do is just show up and pray, but I am up and standing.
I also understood it as… I am standing and taking a stance. We as humans are always standing somewhere. We stand somewhere in how we see the world, what we believe, and the state of our heart. We stand somewhere, so as I alluded to in my previous blog post, I am learning to take my stance unashamed. I am learning to stand confident in the pain I have endured and speak to how the Lord is good and He is with us during these experiences too. Because Jesus endured so much pain, I truly think we can relate to the heart of our God even more when we go through pain.
So to finish off the day that I went to this art gallery, one of our leaders gave a talk on reflection. She challenged us to reflect on how the Lord sees us today and to draw this in a picture. I asked myself this question and the two paintings came to mind. I thought of them both together. I thought of the standing picture as a backdrop for the strong but gentle woman. I drew this in my journal (also shown below). So within my doubt and questions of how to hear God, I believe that God spoke to me through this art. I believe that He is reminding me that I am standing. This is enough. I have power and strength where I stand. Thanks God.
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:16-18.
