This is quite a long post. I thank those willing to read it and offer thoughts.
I can’t remember my exact age, but I was probably around 5. In my backyard, I saw an angel within an oval-shaped ball of light. After this, I felt compelled to draw angels on the window trim of my sister and I’s playhouse. My father, a woodworker, had built a nice playhouse with high quality wood. I am hoping you can help me learn what this means.
I can’t remember ever misbehaving as a child in the way I did when I drew on my father's woodwork. I tried to follow all the rules because I was terrified of my parents. A typical scenario is I would close a drawer in our kitchen, and try to do as quietly as possible, but I could never do so quietly enough for my mother. She would use this as an excuse to scream. I was once on the street two houses down and I could hear her screams. Then, both my mother and father would be violent toward one another. Then, I would be blamed for causing it, while other times they would deny it was happening even if I pointed it out as it was happening.
These events happened more often than not as a child, and I felt helpless. I recently scored 99% neurotic on a personality test, and even though this was over 30 years, I think my childhood is at least partially why.
So, for me to draw many angels over my dad’s woodwork was something I would never had done if I hadn’t have felt compelled by an angel. I felt like I was in a trance. I didn’t even consider the consequences.
I’ve never experienced a hallucination in my life, unless you count this experience, but it seems wrong and insulting to call it an hallucination. For a few years in adulthood, I saw therapists and psychologists and they only ever diagnosed me with depression and anxiety, so I don’t have any problem that would cause hallucinations.
I have always drawn since I was a kid. I can’t draw in the same way as most people. I can’t just pick up a pencil and easily draw a dog from memory, for example. I rely a lot on photos to draw people in certain poses. I wish I knew more techniques.
But my drawings don’t look like anyone else’s. They are quite strange and surreal. Ideas for drawings come to me very easily, and I do believe they come from God. I went to college for art, which was a mixed experience. On the one hand, I used my time well in that I drew and read about art constantly. I probably put my health at risk with the amount of time I spent on it. However, I didn’t learn any technical skills that would be helpful, like how to use watercolors properly or crosshatch. My main professor didn’t want you to follow any formulas, but I think working within a tradition somewhat can be good.
As a child, I believed in God and angels. In middle school, I became agnostic. I think some of this was due to not having good Christian role models. My parents would be violent, and then deny it to my face, and then go to church and think they were good people. They’d put on an act around everyone. I felt disgusted by this. Maybe if they acknowledged their wrongdoing, at least to me, I would have felt different. The insistence on reality being not what it was made me feel like I was going insane sometimes. I’ve felt spiritual in adulthood, and went through an atheist phase for a year or so. I think it was due to feeling lost. I’ve recently started reading the Bible for the first time in my life. I’ve also started reading Carl Jung and analyzing my dreams.
I had lost my ability to make art. Ideas came to me, but I couldn’t figure out how to make art anymore. I spent a lot of time working on art, but I couldn’t finish anything. They didn’t even look like half finished work. They were just blobs and messes. I felt horrible because I had free time to work, but was unable to accomplish anything. I gave up for a few years because it felt hard to justify spending the time. Recently, I’ve been able to make work but I feel so lost still. I’ve never made a work with an angel since the time I drew those angels as a child, but in my next work I’m going to.
I don’t know why I feel lost and confused. I start making one type of work, and an idea rushes into my head for another, and I jump around from one type of work to the other. I feel like a jack of all trades and a master of none.
I feel like I’m failing God or damning myself because I can’t figure out the mystery of what I’m supposed to do with the gift He’s given me. I’m confused, and recently starting thinking back to my vision of the angel. Maybe this is the key to help me.