My Testimony - Part One

"Little Girl Lost" - by Carol Ann Welch, oil on canvas 30"x40", Copyright 1991

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.
~ John 1:5 (MKJV)

For he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. ~ Hebrews 13:5 (KJV)

This painting has been hanging over my desk for several years, waiting for me to paint part two. It is a self-portrait and it is the beginning of my testimony. Yes, so sad, I know. But look at the light. As it turns out, this painting is not about the little girl, it's about the light. But I'll get back to that.

I painted this one in 1991. At that time, I wanted desperately to get back to painting, so I audited a painting class at Tarrant County College. I already had a Bachelor's degree in Art, but I thought the studio environment would give me a "jump start". Something amazing happened in that class - I went a direction in painting where I had never gone - I painted the dark places of my life. That had always been taboo before, as I opted instead to paint "pretty pictures" that gave me a sense of escape. By the end of the class, I had painted fear, depression, anger, jealousy and denial. My last painting for the class was this one -
"Little Girl Lost".

The image came to me very clearly and complete. The title came with the vision. I knew it had to be large, so I bought a 30"x40" canvas and dove in. This is the easiest painting I have ever done. As I said, the vision came so clearly. I used an old photograph of myself as a reference for the little girl, with some changes. I was amazed at how quickly it came together and was finished. I knew when I painted it that it was the most powerful work I had ever done. But I had no idea why.

The little girl in the painting is me. I knew from the beginning that it was a self-portrait. Everyone that sees this painting has the same reaction, "She's so sad." Yes, she is. I was an extremely shy child and there was a lot of sadness and loneliness that came with that. As a teenager, I became terribly depressed. It puzzled everyone. I came from a good, loving family. I was spoiled rotten - in a good way. I was never abused. Yet, I didn't want to live. I was in terrible emotional pain. My mom had also suffered from depression, so she did the only thing she knew to do - she took me to the doctor. So, at age 13, I was prescribed anti-depressants and sent to a counselor. That was the beginning of 25 years of therapy and medication (I took over a dozen different kinds during that time). I was eventually diagnosed with chronic depression (due to a hereditary chemical imbalance), anxiety, panic attacks and borderline agoraphobia. I was told there was no cure, just medication and learning some "coping skills". Medication never really helped that much, and I was not very good at coping. So I mostly suffered and trudged through life anyway. It's that torment of depression that the little girl portrays.

She sits in a dark room - totally black (In the photo, the brush strokes tend to reflect light and look gray, but it is really solid black - only Rick could get it to photograph this good). I have always seen the room as the black pit of depression, but it has many names and many places within it. It is the place of "would've-could've-should've" and the prison of fear. There is a dead-end hallway of people pleasing, a pacing track of anxiety, a pounding wall of anger and an even deeper hole of suicidal thoughts. Anyway, enough about that. I know the place all too well and I hate it!

I won't even begin to talk about the darkness. Darkness talks about itself quite enough. And it always talks about what is wrong with everything.

The real subject of this painting is the light. In that dark room, there is a window filled with light. That light pours in and shines upon the little girl, even though she doesn't recognize it. When I painted this, I was most fascinated by the light. I loved the way that it pierced the darkness and caressed the child. At the time, I thought of the light as hope. I was still battling depression then, but I was finally in a place of hope. I now believe that the light was always shining on the little girl. Sometimes she saw it, quite often she warmed herself in it and it always gave her the strength to go on. She just did not know how to get to the light. She always thought it was just out of reach.

There is one other element in the painting that I would point out. Behind the child is a figure of a woman in the darkness. It is painted with the same black as the background and is only delineated by palette knife strokes. I painted it with the intention that it be the destined woman that the little girl would grow to be, hidden in the darkness.

Fast forward to 2002 and the painting was stored behind my bedroom dresser. The year before, I had rededicated my life to the Lord and He had pulled me out of that pit. I had been off anti-depressants for about a year and was doing better than I had ever been. While in prayer one day, the Lord reminded me of this painting and I had an "ah-ha" moment. I ran to get the painting, pulled it out, dusted it off and marveled at what the Lord had shown me. Jesus said "I am the light of the world." The light is Jesus! He had been right there with me always, through all the pain and darkness. I have known Jesus from a very young age (thanks to my sister Debbie) and I can truly say that at the lowest points in my life, it was Him that pulled me up. He gave me the strength to finish high school when I thought I couldn't. He gave me the courage to go to college and the tenacity to finish. He helped me to love when I was terrified to. He sat with me through all the dark nights of my tormented soul, gave me sleep and got me up in the morning. The only two times that I ever actively sought to end my life, He physically stopped me from harming myself. The last time, I actually felt His physical embrace. There is nothing like it on this earth. Pure peace. He is the light of my life, and always has been, even when I didn't realize it. He is faithful, even when we are not.

When the revelation of the light came to me, a vision for another painting did too. I saw the next painting of my testimony. That painting has grown within my spirit like a baby for the past eight years. Labor began last spring when I finally started it. It will be finished very soon. I expect to share it in my next blog post.

At the end of that audited painting class, we had a class critique. I only remember one comment from that critique. The instructor said that the darkness looked impenetrable. She thought it was just too dark and intense and no light could possibly cut through it. I smiled and said, "No, there is light. There, most definitely, is light!"

To be continued... My Testimony - Part Two