Memories – Chrissy Garwood

Transformation

Transformation business
“That is not the end of the story. God is in the transformation business. Judgement flows from God’s holy character but he delights to show favour and love; these are the things that last…” John Grayston, WordLive 09/12/2018. For the complete devotional please click the following link:
https://www.wordlive.org/Session/Classic/2018-12-09/Complete-turnaround

Thirty years ago, I was in a terrible state. As a patient in a private clinic, I had been weaned off one powerful medication only to have an adverse reaction to the new one. Five months earlier I had been admitted to hospital after developing encephalitis, and then sent home when I didn’t die. The prognosis for the next few years was bleak. I wasn’t going to get better anytime soon.

I could no longer stand upright without support, and when I closed my eyes I fell over. I was plagued by visual hallucinations, nausea and a slowness of thought where the neurologist’s tests matched my waking moments to that of a normal person sleeping. I could barely look after myself, and my son had gone to live with my mother. No-one was surprised that I was clinically depressed, a chemical imbalance that robbed me of my joy.

My faith in God was tested.

Then a series of unfortunate events tipped me over the edge. First, I was violently ill in response to the new medication. Then one of my new friends told me she wished she had the hope that I had, and went away to die alone – she changed her mind at the last minute but the person she called for help didn’t arrive in time. But the straw that broke this heart was going out with my husband to a Christmas function and having the waiter accidentally tip a cup of coffee down my back.

My last recollection was wailing on the pavement, as a swirling pit of darkness underneath my feet. I cried out to God that I couldn’t take anymore. The darkness grew and I was falling. Then I felt the hand of God grab me by the back of the neck like a kitten carried by its mother. He pulled me back into the light. My husband watched me go from insanity to a quiet mess. Neither of us has been the same since.

There followed an amazing series of positive experiences that cancelled out all the bleakness of the previous days. I awoke on Sunday 18th of December, sane and alive, and in a defeated state. I lay in bed in the private clinic and told God He had to take over control because I had nothing left.
Within minutes, there came a knock at the door, an unexpected invitation from an acquaintance, and I was dressed and out the door on an unexpected visit to an unfamiliar church. During that morning service, one by one, people stood up and quoted scriptures, each with direct correspondence to some puzzling visions that God had given me in answer to my pleas for help in recent weeks.

Hope reawakened in my heart. But God wasn’t finished with me yet. I was still physically broken but my joy was overflowing and I knew God had heard my desperate cries. That evening, I went back to that same Church, and during the service, God called me to my vocation. I went from a helper for other people’s ministry to a leader of a ministry of my own. Only when I had fully accepted that new calling did God bring about the greatest sign of all.

I went forward for prayer at the end of the service, and witnesses told me it was marvellous to see. My walking stick went flying as I fell – I closed my eyes to pray and the catcher missed me. I had a bump on my head to testify to the hardness of the floor. After making my confession, my body felt as if I had been struck by lightning, and I jumped up. Much laughter and celebration followed, and then other people hurried down to have prayer, not wanting to miss an opportunity for a miracle.

I was delivered back to the private clinic afterwards, and the other patients had me walking and leaping up and down the corridor to prove that I was healed. My transformation was remarkable. God is good. )i( He steps in at just the right time. My faith in God was tested to the very limits of my sanity, and He didn’t let me down )i(

When I started writing White Rose of Promise one of my Church friends asked if this book was going to be autobiographical. I said no. Yet I realise that the transformation that takes place in the life of my central character has the foundations in that event that happened thirty years ago. I had been an active Christian for fourteen years when my faith was tested.

There have been other testing times, including the season that I am in at the moment. My WRoP manuscript went to the proofreader yesterday, and I have hired a designer to take over the cover preparation. I still have a lot to learn about life, about being a writer, about living a faithful life in a troubled world.

But today, God has filled my heart with rejoicing as He reminds me that the journey of discovery is ongoing, and He will be right there with me to pick me up when I fall. I have a couple of miracle memories to make sure I don’t forget )i(

Disappointment

For my newest writing project, manuscript 3, I have been investigating lots of D words. Disappointment is one of those I am most familiar with. It comes with a big emotional back catalogue to give me plenty of personal references.

Usually, I am disappointed in myself, in my imperfection, and in the way that I struggle to remain true to the impossible goals that I have set.

The opposite of dis-appointment is appointment. I need to remind myself that I was created for a purpose (1 Peter 2:9), and that the Creator of the Universe has a much bigger plan (Jeremiah 29:11). While I am struggling with this teeny little corner of the wider artwork that is my life, He is making something amazing (1 Corinthians 13:12).

I selected the featured image for this post because it presents a good visual example. The foundation was a small section of an ink on paper drawing that I really liked, so I scanned it and played with it. It was only when I tried to use it that I realised it had been such a tiny segment that the pixelations (those little ‘invisible’ squares that make up a digital image) were obvious.

Now I must confess that I am growing to like the awkward feelings that arise within me when something morphs into one of these less-than-perfect images. It helps remind me of all the hidden things that lurk beneath the surface, and are only available when something brings the whole image into full focus.

For the past few years, I have been spending a lot of time sitting in front of the computer screen. After four years of study, I believed God was telling me to write a fiction novel. At this moment, White Rose of Promise is in the final Copy-editing stages, When Promises are Broken is almost ready to release to the beta reader volunteers, and Book 3 is underway (I am still waiting for a title to emerge).

I have two computers available to me: a custom-built PC that is long overdue for a check-up and my portable laptop. I have two options for internet connection, one that is unlimited broadband, but the modem is too far away for me to have maximum benefit; and a portable one that is really handy, but has to be recharged at regular intervals.

Today, I am typing this text on my laptop (the PC had a hissy-fit – a highly technical term where the frustrated user is tempted to throw it out the window). After three failed restarts, I realise it will be off to the computer-doctor later today. I am also using my portable modem because the ‘fast’ broadband is too slow to open anything other than my emails today )i(.

Which brings me to here. I often find my inspiration among the many online subscriptions that send themselves helpfully to my email account. The word ‘disappointment’ jumped off the screen and the creative inspiration had me rushing to start capturing my thoughts. Here is the quote that started it all today:

“If we’re honest with ourselves, disappointments can leave wounds that take time to heal.” Wendy Parker, thebigvoiceonline.com, Blog November 28, “Your Third Day – Dealing with disappointment” Click here for the full text

As I was setting up both my backup technology options, my husband remarked that it wasn’t a convenient day to have both these problems. Even he now knows that Thursday morning is my dedicated writing time. First I read all my online subscriptions and log into my daily devotions. Then I sit down and write something – usually, it is for my Butterfly Prayer House Facebook blog, but sometimes, I find myself disappointed by technology or my own ability to pay attention.

Disappointment comes crashing in like a wave, trying to knock me off my feet. If I allow disappointment to influence me, then I will either drown in the negative emotions. Or I will leave the water, too frightened to learn how to overcome it.

Today, I discovered that I have greater resilience than I imagined. Despite lots of disappointment-inspiring difficulties, I have accomplished my main goal for the morning.

I even managed to find an alternative image when the one I REALLY wanted was on the PC. I am thankful that I have options, and that if one door of opportunity closes, instead of retreating from the arena, I need to open my eyes and look for another one. Often people question why I have such a positive approach to life – they don’t see what I am revealing to my readers. They don’t realise that God picks me up and turns my attention to the next adventure and that by His appointment, I expect everything to end in victory.

Seek and find

The past week has been a mixture of good experiences and bad. I have made some good progress on my second manuscript but also endured disappointment after losing a computer file that contained hours of research. I have needed to go back and start again, and some online references have proven elusive. The worldwide web continues to expand and even an hour can change the search engine results, especially if the right combination of keywords cannot be remembered…

Matthew 7:7-8 (NIV)
“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. ⁸For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.”

These two verses from Matthew 7 are powerful influences in my life. I used them as the foundation for my research approach when I was working on my year-long Fine Arts project that concluded in 2017. In the beginning, I thought I was going to make a series of still life paintings based on a collection of found objects, and set up a strict finding protocol.
I could only spend $10 in a single visit to a shop, and each individual object could cost no more than $2.

My weekly visits to the local charity shops were profoundly rewarding, and the volunteers came to know me well and would ask how my blue collection was growing.

Here is a link to a video that I made for my second last university submission )i(

While I was collecting objects and taking hundreds of photographs looking for some new way of expressing a still life arrangement with my collected objects, I searched the internet for contemporary artists who were doing similar things. While I found very few who were painting still life arrangements, I stumbled upon a greater number of artists who were transforming everyday ordinary objects into works of art in diverse ways. That became the foundation for the multi-media performance installation that became my final outcome.

The same kinds of skills are necessary for me to write a convincing story. I am confident with character development, but my heroes and heroines need to inhabit an interesting world and have a diversity of experiences to keep me engaged. My second manuscript takes my heroine overseas, and once again I am ‘surfing the internet’ looking for inspiration…

Another of my experiments for an art project.
This one is entitled “Wounded Paper”
It is amazing where inspiration can come from )i(

Research takes up almost as much time as writing at the moment. The topics are diverse, and I am starting to build up a strong collection of helpful reference texts about the process of writing too. I will share a small sample here today. The first one is about punctuation in dialogue.

https://www.louiseharnbyproofreader.com/blog/how-to-punctuate-dialogue-in-a-novel#

The second one is a powerful prayer
written by an accomplished author

Prayers for the Writing Life

Here is an excellent prayer that I found while I was working my way through my subscription emails. As I try to find the right steps along the writing journey I am turning more and more to the words of others who have gone this way before )i(

The third and final one is about an art theory. The abstract images I have selected for today come from my interest in finding shapes in seemingly random markings. Have you looked up at the clouds and recognised shapes. That is Gestalt.

Gestalt Theory

This final one is about an art theory.

When I told my friends God had asked me to sit down and start writing fiction, some of them were surprised. They couldn’t see the natural connections between the research and development skills that I had been perfecting during four years of university study. Neither could I.
Yet week by week, I am taken back to the art journey in my private prayer and reflections, and I am seeing more and more relevance with each passing day.

This is the unedited image of one of my
favourite found objects for my
Blue Skies:Chasing Away The Blues
research project

To conclude my post for the week I will include some of the inspirational images I have created using variations of the two art experiments and the found object. It is my prayer that my readers will have success in all their seeking and finding and make good progress on their own onward journey of discovery )i(

There Is A Season…

My mood is as changeable as the weather.
Sometimes I grow impatient.
I am still learning to relax and enjoy
whatever opportunities God places before me. )i(

Water is one of the references I am exploring in my River Wild Series.

It is winter here in Tasmania, and it will be a few months before the weather is warm enough for me to contemplate going to the beach.
I am one of those mortals who rug up at the first sign of a cool wind and hide away from the colder weather. Yet I also struggle in the heat of summer and could not survive in a hotter climate.

Whenever my mind turns to seasons, I find myself singing an old song, which is based on an Old Testament Bible passage from Ecclesiastes.

Click here for a link to the song ‘Turn, Turn, Turn,’ by the Byrds

Ecclesiastes 3:1-10 (NIV)
There is a time for everything,
    and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,
    a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
    a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
    a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
    a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
    a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
    a time to be silent and a time to speak,
a time to love and a time to hate,
    a time for war and a time for peace.

Virtual Gallery Installation, 2017 Windmills of My Mind Series
inspired by the song Turn, Turn, Turn

Here is one of my Butterfly Prayer House images )i(

This week I have been researching an exotic location for my second manuscript.
My heroine is flying to Thailand. That inner critical voice has been asking how I could ever write a convincing account of her experience when I have never travelled there myself.

In a moment of doubt, while I was praying about my anxieties and fears, God brought me three memories.

The first one was from 2000 when I volunteered at the Sydney Olympics. I was assigned to the Olympic Weightlifting venue in Darling Harbour – my husband is a coach, and I have been a State official for that sport for decades. This was my first solo trip to the mainland, and there were lots of new experiences. I remember struggling to get through the crowds to get to my venue. It seemed that hundreds of thousands of people were going in the opposite direction. On more than one occasion I was physically accosted by a stranger, and I had to learn how to speak up for myself and get myself out of trouble.

The second memory is also from the Sydney Olympics. At the last minute, I was invited to accompany some of the other volunteers to the Opening Ceremony. It was a wonderful opportunity and I was very thankful. Afterwards, in the crush at the train station, I was separated from my companions. I waited for hours for my line to get close enough to the platform for me to catch the train home. The conversations with my companions the next day revealed some strategies that would have saved my tired legs and blistered feet from all that shuffling in the wrong queue.

The third memory is from 1993. My husband and I had our one and only family holiday. We went to Queensland in January, not the best time for someone who struggles with the heat. We had with us our two boys. Both of them are on the Autism Spectrum, but that was a diagnosis we had yet to receive. It was a memorable holiday, for all the wrong reasons, a story for another time. Of course, we went to Movie World and this was my first real experience with a crowd filled with faces from many different countries. We arrived early, and stood in a line, surrounded by voices speaking in unfamiliar tongues.

From these three memories, I realise that I have enough connection with the kind of situations my heroine will face to be able to write convincing scenes. I have also discovered some very helpful information on the internet including some great YouTube videos to help me choose the accommodation and the special places my heroine will go on her adventure. I am looking forward to sharing the finished story soon )i(