Emerging Artist Sale-Enjoy 10% off Hand Painted Originals

Gratitude and Grief

A reflection on healing and gratitude in a season of grief. The beauty of holding complicated emotions together in the same space and letting Jesus heal what feels fractured beyond repair.

10/6/20264 min read

Last weekend I participated in my first art and craft show at Cornwell's Turkeyville in Marshall, Michigan.

I didn't sell out, or get rich...But I made new friends, created meaningful connections, gathered ideas for future events. Most importantly, I came with a grateful heart for the tender way Jesus tends to my grieving heart.

As I reflect on the weekend, I realize that what God gave me was far greater than a successful sales event. He gave me an unexpected gift of healing.

Months ago, way before my father's death, I had booked several opportunities to share my artwork and creative workshops with the public. The Country Mill paint classes and the Art show at Cornwell’s Turkeyville, were the first significant steps toward a dream I had been nurturing for years.

After my dad passed away, I seriously considered canceling everything.

The thought of showing up, smiling, teaching, and engaging with people while carrying such a heavy heart felt overwhelming. I didn’t think I had the emotional capacity to do any of it well.

But tickets had already been sold for one of the workshops, and I felt a responsibility to honor my commitments. So I moved forward, one step at a time, trusting God with the outcome.
Looking back now, I can see His wisdom because He knew what I did not.
He knew that obedience would place me in the very locations where healing was waiting.
Both the cider mill and Turkeyville were places woven into the fabric of my childhood. They weren't random business venues. They were places where memories lived.

At the cider mill, there was a man driving the apple train who looked and sounded remarkably like my dad. He had that same gruff and grizzled exterior that could initially seem intimidating, but underneath was a genuine passion for the people and things he loved.
Every time I saw him, I smiled because he reminded me of him.

Turkeyville brought its own surprises. As I stood in my vendor booth talking with visitors, a memory surfaced that I hadn't thought about in years.

When I was a Tween, my Dad had a booth at a “Swap Meet” event at the Ingham County Fairgrounds. It was around the time he began creating his very own Hot Rod out of a 1930 Model A Ford body he had picked up out of a Farmers Field. He had finally settled in on what he was going to build and had car parts to get rid of from other projects he had considered. As a kid, I would turn myself inside out to be next to my Dad, and I was so excited that I was spending the weekend with him, by having my very own table of crafts I had made myself.

I was tending the cash box for sales and kept a separate tally of my sales on a ratty old spiral notebook. I remember earning around one hundred dollars.

To an adult, that may not sound like much.
To a twelve-year-old girl, it felt enormous.

I remember thinking that I could happily spend every weekend talking with people, selling my creations, and hanging out with my dad.
Somehow that memory had been tucked away for decades.

Standing at Turkeyville, with the familiar sounds, smells, conversations, and rhythms of a craft show all around me, that memory came rushing back. Suddenly I could see something I had missed.

The dream I am pursuing today did not appear out of nowhere.

Its roots run deep.

Long before I called it a business, long before I imagined workshops, websites, blogs, and art shows, there was a little girl sitting beside her father at a craft booth, discovering the joy of making something with her hands and sharing it with others.

My father wasn't a perfect man.

Like all of us, he carried wounds and burdens. As the years passed, emotional and physical pain took a toll on him and it had an effect on our relationship.

But he was also creative.

He was curious.

He could fix almost anything.

He taught himself countless skills, and he liked to teach others.

He provided for our family and introduced us to places that expanded our world—Turkeyville, Rock City, The Cascades, countless historical villages, parks, museums, and roadside adventures that became treasured memories.

This weekend reminded me that I carry many of those gifts with me.I see pieces of him in my creativity, my curiosity, my love of learning, and my desire to build, teach and create.

One of the sweetest moments of the weekend came when my sister brought me six wooden rabbits. Three of them have a long history.

Years ago, my Uncle Tom cut rabbit shapes from a pine board using designs my father and I had drawn. Dad drew one rabbit, and I drew the other two. We painted them together, and they spent years living in the flower beds of our childhood home.

Over time they weathered, faded, and needed repainting.

They moved with me through different seasons of life and eventually found a home at my father's house, where they became markers for beloved pets we had loved and lost.

After Dad died, my sister rescued them. They were in rough shape. So my Uncle Tom—the same uncle who cut them out the first time—made a new set and repaired the originals. Now they are back with me once again, waiting for fresh paint.

As I thought about those rabbits, it occurred to me that they tell a story much bigger than themselves.

Weathered
Loved.
Repaired.
Restored.
Given new life.

Perhaps that is what God has been doing in my own heart.
This weekend did not erase my grief.

I still miss my dad.

I miss his laugh.I miss his smile. I miss hearing him say "Neat-o" whenever he saw something that delighted him. I especially miss the man he was before pain consumed so much of his life.

But for the first time in a long while, I felt less focused on what was lost and more aware of what remains.

The creativity.
The memories.
The lessons.
The love.The legacy.

Most of all, I felt the gentle presence of God walking beside me through a garden of memories. Not rushing me, or demanding that I move on. Simply reminding me that He had gone before me.

The events I nearly canceled became places of healing.
The commitments I almost abandoned became opportunities for restoration.
And the dream I was afraid to pursue became another reminder that God wastes nothing.
Not our grief, not our memories, not even the places that make us ache.
Sometimes He meets us there and turns them into sacred ground.