stay.

what it means to linger before art & in life

L I N G E R || verb to dwell in contemplation, thought, or enjoyment

I should feel more joy, right? More hopefulness, excitement, gratefulness? I forced the thought from my mind as my husband’s warm hand enveloped my own. We walked down Constitution Avenue in Washington, DC, leisurely making our way toward the National Gallery of Art. Our 10 year wedding anniversary was around the corner, and we’d managed to get away for a staycation for a few days, just the two of us.

While I don’t know for sure how I expected our 10 year celebration to feel, I know that I never anticipated…this. Though the sky was bright and the weather unseasonably warm that February day, my heart cast shadows over the vibrant sun, and storm clouds of grief and confusion darkened my perspective. Too much heavy had happened in a too-fast, five month span. The church change, the miscarriage, the house buying drama. The pandemic, the sicknesses, the canceled anniversary party plans. My mind was laden with a camouflaged despair that would only later be diagnosed as depression. By the time our anniversary weekend rolled around, I didn’t care what we did, and that should’ve been the first sign something was wrong. I didn’t care.

We arrived at the museum, and I sensed the clouds clearing a bit, letting a ray of sunshine through. Art has a way of doing that, breaking through the fog and gloom to bring clarity to a churning heart. I appreciated J’s willingness to saunter through the gallery at my pace, knowing he’d be ready to move on more quickly than me. But not today. Today, I needed the stillness of statues, the presence of mind that came when lingering before portraits. I needed to be drawn in to the messages that the artists had prepared only for my interpretation. Maybe, just maybe, the doorway frames would allow me to enter and unburden myself, leaving my turmoil behind and reemerging my normal self.

Precious hours of the day were spent in that gallery, but don’t ask me about the art I viewed. I don’t remember much. I do remember the impressions though. The tightening of my chest, the tears in my eyes, the breath caught in my throat. I remember the colors and swirls and soft strokes, as well as the rough hewn edges, sharp lines and washed out grays. I grounded myself on the marble floors and pondered my reflection, glimmer noticeably absent from my eyes.

The diversity of the gallery—all hard edges and soft hues and things I couldn’t make heads or tails of—embodied my internal life, and the ache that had temporarily subsided as I’d contemplated the creativity around me once again began its dull throb in my head and heart as we made our way toward the exit. I paused at the gift shop, knowing I wouldn’t buy, but still wanting to peruse. It was there that I saw it, the message I was meant to receive during this visit, the one that put words to the way this simple museum walk had lightened the weight of my despondency:

art saves lives

art. saves. lives.

I stared at the words, the unassuming cursive stitching onto a simple pencil pouch belying the weightiness and substance that they held. Art saves lives. It was a gut punch and a full wraparound hug, the implications of the truth filling and lightening me all at once. I knew it in that moment, and it was confirmed in the seasons to come: Art was saving my life.

Art was the bandaid that held me together until deeper healing measures were applied. And this is no slight to the Art Giver, not at all. All things belong to him, the greatest Artist, and he uses any and all means to comfort and to draw his struggling image bearers.

Means such as: the art gallery and the word museum and the unexpected flower bouquets and the beach trip and the blog postings and the desperate emotional brain dumps into my notes app and the poetry and the writing workshop and coloring next to my kids and designing Bible verses on Canva and more than I could even begin to state or consider—each was a creative salve that tended to a present wound as I hauled my way toward the Healer.

L I N G E R || verb to remain alive; continue or persist, although gradually dying

Art is more than a passing trend, more than a 14 second Instagram reel, more than an elective to opt in or out of. Art gives us who are burdened, us who are willing to pause and review it, us who muster the strength to engage and be ministered to by it, the push that we need to linger here, on this side of heaven, to see another day of mercies tomorrow.

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This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series "Linger."