Our Story So Far...

I’ve heard a lot of people say that 2016 has been their worst year but for me, it has been the exact opposite. This has been the best year of my life. That isn’t to say that I haven’t had my share of challenges and turmoil but I have a hard time casting negativity because of everything that came from these experiences. And that’s not some hokey platitude about how “I sure did learn a lot!” but that every bad thing that happened…definitively led to good things that could not have occurred otherwise. …And also, I truly did learn a lot. Just sayin’.

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Brief back up: I have been drawing since I could hold a crayon. My parents have always been supportive of this gift, especially when I showed talent very early on. They didn’t always appreciate the scribblings on the wall but in every place we lived, I made sure it got an original Amanda Horton on it somewhere. I think somewhere along the line, maybe early teachers or authority figures, planted this idea that an artist wasn’t a "real job." That unless you went to college for a career or at the very least had a 9-5 time-clock punch card job, then it wasn’t valuable. There was always this tone of sacrifice somewhere, the trope of the starving artist pushed down my throat along with a disillusionment with various art careers. I wanted to be a Disney animator...until Disney got rid of their art department. I wanted to be a comic artist/graphic novelist until it started trending with the superhero movies(the over-availability of books on "How to" become a graphic novelist told me all I needed to know about my competition and how hard I'd have to fight to be heard and seen in a crowd of other up and comers). Once I got to high school, all my motivation to grow up was gone because it meant I couldn’t do what I wanted to do for a living.

So, after I graduated, I got married and I stayed at home doing nothing. I drew things when I got inspired, usually comics, occasionally realistic portraits. My favorite things to use were pencils and markers but in high school I also had a talent for oil pastels. Paint was off the table. I’d worked with it a few times in Art class but it never turned out pretty, except for water color. I knew I had a gift for photo realistic replication since high school but was again influenced to think that this wasn’t “real” art. The kind of art I idealized were fantasy paintings, surrealism, and collage-like journals where people cluster a page with pretty pictures and words. If I couldn’t sit and look at a blank piece of paper and just create magic from my head; if I had to look at something in order to make something, then it was “cheating.” Every time I successfully drew a celebrity portrait, I’d disdainfully call myself a “human photocopier” and point out all the flaws in order to discourage people from commissioning me. Because it was wrong to cheat them out of money for this “sub-par” work, this stuff that a kiosk in the mall could do, when provided with a photo. “Here’s your photo back, done exactly but with sketchy marks on it. Pay me.” How arrogant of me to demand such!

Eventually, I gave in to the pressure to be a responsible human adult and I got a job at a grocery store, since that was what my education level afforded me. Occasionally, I’d make art for friends and give it away for free and I’d always get asked, “What are you doing here?” Well...where else was I going to go? I was doing what had been required of me: I had an adult job and paid taxes. Art was a hobby. These people needed to let it go. For the most part, I enjoyed working at the super market. I loved to serve people and my sunny nature made me great with customers. But I was also critical, quick to anger, and hung onto grudges. Ask anyone, I had my bad days, my temper tantrums, but for the most part, I was happy and content. Especially after my divorce, set free from an unhealthy relationship and reconnecting with my mother and family.

November 2015 rolls around and one of the ladies in the Deli who was friends with me on Facebook, mentioned my work to a woman who was in need of portraits that she wanted done. They were a Christmas gift for some friends of hers and thinking, "Why not? I can help her out." I agreed to do them. She gave me photos of the horses that she wanted done and I went to FedEx Office and had them print them out big so that I could see them better. They put them on nice, glossy photo paper, and as I looked them over, I suffered an extreme amount of doubt. Why not just give her the pictures I’d had printed? Why not tell her that she could get these photos printed at FedEx Office for under a dollar? They still looked awesome on that beautiful photo paper. What was I doing charging her for this?

I did them anyway and I charged her $10 for each of the 5 portraits she wanted done. My father helped me get nice board to mat them on and I gave them to her. She paid me a little bit extra and I was extremely grateful but felt the cold chill of dissatisfaction. Because each one of these portraits took 3-4 hours and it felt like I was still giving artwork away for free. But while I felt this sensation of “maybe this is worth more” I still had that internal doubt thing going on where it didn’t feel like it was my right to ask for anything more.

I started to feel angry. My fuse was shorter than ever and I started to get angry with people who didn’t deserve to be targets of my ire. I started questioning, “If I’m so content with the state of my life, then what is my problem? What am I angry about?” I couldn’t answer these questions on my own because on the face of it, like I said, things were working pretty well in my favor. So I bought a book to help me, Debbie Ford’s The Dark Side of the Light Chasers. It’s a book about confronting the Shadow and dismantling projections. Because that was what this clearly was; I was angry about something but blaming everyone else around me, rather than being honest about it and looking into myself. 

This book was another huge catalyst for the changes in my life. Being able to be honest with myself and how I was feeling, actually talking to my inner demons and listening to them, is the best therapy I’ve ever had. I not only made amends with family members who I’d been fighting with but I also realized that I did not, in fact, want to be a cashier forever. I had ambitions, dreams to express myself creatively and professionally. But I couldn’t do both. The first of the year, I tried to remain with the grocery store and pursue an art and writing career but the emotional toll of working in the service industry took whatever energy I had left. I was spending most of my nights zombified and most of my days off “recuperating” from my days working. So, February 14^th of 2016, I said goodbye to the store and took a chance on being an artist!

By that I mean, I quit my stable job of 4 years and I jumped into empty air without a plan. A week later, my mother asked me to help her with a mural she was painting for her boyfriend at the time. He’s a hunter and his garage is his “man cave.” The upstairs level is really the man cave with a bar, couches, dart board, pool table, and walls literally covered with the stuffed trophies of his hunts. But even the bottom part, which is more of a garage, is a showcase of alpha maleness, with his nice old car(kept in good running condition and taken to car shows every summer/fall), everything put in its own spot, and pretty darn clean for a garage. My mother is artistically inclined and had painted some stuff for him before so when he asked her to do some murals on the inside of his garage doors, she said she’d do it. She had the sky done for the first mural and an outline of an elk. They’d used a projector and the silhouetted photo of an elk to trace it on the door.

I’m not sure if they always decided to do the elk in detail or if it was originally supposed to be a silhouette and they changed it later. But all of a sudden, momma got cold feet. She was insecure about her ability to paint the elk and make the fur and everything look realistic. She knew I was good at portraits and asked me to come over and help her. I was adamantly against this because as soon as she said “paint” I was like, “Not interested. I hate paint and it hates me.” She asked me if I’d at least draw the details for her so that she could paint it and I was like, “Sure. I can do that.” So, I came over and using pictures from a couple of magazines that her boyfriend had, I drew the eye of the elk, where his legs were, the little details of his muscles and whatnot and then I outlined them in sharpie for her. Not a day later, she tells me that she can’t do it and pleads with me to try painting it. She’s my best friend and I knew that this was something she’d committed to with her boyfriend, so, I couldn’t leave her hanging. Also, she promised me that her boyfriend would pay me, so, I agreed to paint the elk.

I get over there and she’s got all the paints set up on a sort of table and I get out the brown, straight from the can because it looks about right, color-wise. And I start to apply it to the face of the elk and it’s just this ugly, flat brown and I’m starting to cover up a few of my details that I’d drawn on there before. I have this moment of panic where I don’t know how to make this brown become fur, and eyes, and nose and all of that junk. I turn to my mother and tell her that I can’t do this. She got firm with me, telling me to try, to at least put in that effort and she reassured me that if it didn’t look good, they were oil based paints; we could just paint over it! Knowing that my possible mistakes wouldn’t scar the picture for eternity made me feel a bit better, so, I went ahead and continued trying. An hour or two later, I had finished the elk’s face and it was looking back at us, fur and all.

It wasn’t easy because everything I’ve learned about paint has been through trial and error and working with my mother using them. I ended up treating the paint brushes like markers and I’d have solid colors in bowls and apply them to the wall in different percentages and mix them right there on the wall to get the colors and effects I wanted. Sometimes, this was really hard and frustrating and I would often throw little fits here and there over things not working properly. Other times, it was so easy, I do not remember painting. Growing up, I was a bit of a spacey kid, often losing myself in fantasy. Ride in the car for more than 5 minutes? You’d’ve lost me to some grand adventure story that I was playing out in my head. In adulthood, this sort of dissociation manifested in losing hours. Have dishes to do? I’ll get to it after this episode of TV show…oops, it’s time for bed now, I’ll get to it tomorrow. Same thing happens the next morning. It became something to fight against, this mode of mental escapism where I could not force myself to be productive or engage with my surroundings.

Suddenly, sitting before these walls and bowls of paint, I realized what this mental cloud-climbing was for. I wasn’t “broken” or engaging in unhealthy coping mechanisms; I wasn’t using my gifts properly all along. Because the time when I have trouble with painting is when I overthink it, when I analyze and criticize myself when it’s not immediately perfect or exactly like the picture I am using as a reference. The times that I find the most magic, the most “effortless” beauty and realism, is when I surrender to instinct and I become a puppet for whatever force that drives me. Those times when I let fantasy and stream of consciousness flood in and I sort of leave the here and now to become a ghost. I remember thinking about painting and making choices regarding the painting but a lot of it is made with an airy amusement, a detached watchfulness as I hurry to get back to the internal dialogue that is usually very strictly NOT about painting at all.

Finding a talent for paint has been the best thing to ever happen to me and painting on walls, doubly so. Suddenly, all those times my naval family moved around and I had to christen every new house with a scribbled drawing on the walls, made sense, like the calling card of Destiny. At 5 years old, I knew more about what I needed to do with my talent than I did at 28 and it took me that long to rediscover it. I have no doubt that this string of events was heavily influenced and inspired by Heavenly Father. Too many things happened in just the right order to make the story too "neat" for mere random chance. I soon learned, however, that God wasn’t done with me yet.

I took a break for the summer, around mid-May, because the hot weather made painting in my mom’s now fiancé’s garage really uncomfortable. The paints were drying too quickly especially with a fan directed at me but without a fan, I was too grouchy and uncomfortable to work. So, I took a break but I continued to collect commissions, planning on starting again in September when the weather starts to cool down. For my birthday, in August, all I really wanted was groceries and new shirts. After working 4 years at a grocery store, basically living in my uniform and not working at all before that, my wardrobe had suffered much wear and tear. Every single T-shirt I owned had a hole in it somewhere and I had no dressy shirts. So, my mother took me up to Kohl’s and she got me a purple shirt, 2 peachy-orange ones, and one sky blue. Nice things to wear when I would meet with clients for commissions and freelance work.

Come September 2^nd, and our family gets hit with a bit of bad drama. I won't go into detail but it was very scary and tore us all up emotionally. I’m not sure what made me think of it, especially after the 7 years of silence, but I decided to pray. It might have had something to do with rebonding with my grandparents, who are very strong in the church. It might have been the book by Debbie Ford and the mental exercises within it that helped me see myself the way God does, as a daughter, as a flawed being trying her best with the tools available. It might have been the way I felt His guiding hand in the gift I’d reconnected with, finding Him there with me while I painted. It could have just been that I knew that the good things that had happened were like I’d been kissed with fortune and it was all His doing. He wouldn’t allow us to experience such joy and basically paradise on earth, only to strip it all away. Not without a reason.

So, I knelt by my bed that night and said a prayer. I poured my heart out and talked with Him as a daughter asking for help. I asked Him to soften the hearts of those causing our family such trouble but it was important to me that He know and understand that I wasn’t asking cheaply or flippantly. I didn’t want to treat my Heavenly Father like a genie to grant me wishes and I didn’t want this to be a type of situation where “Oh, I got what I want. Thanks. See you later!” and then He’d never hear from me again. Despite my lapse in practicing faith, I remembered the reverence I was supposed to have for this communication. I knew that by asking Him for help, He would likely give me anything I asked for but if I asked a second time, He’d need something other than “Hey, at least I called you, right? That’s something.” I started to think about what I was willing to commit to, what would be a valid sacrifice to show that I was serious about this relationship.

I felt prompted to go to church again. It popped in my head that I could make plans with my grandparents and get a ride with them, since I don’t have a car or license, but I was thinking of it as something to do in the future. Then it occurred to me that it was Saturday and the next day was Sunday and why not put my money where my mouth is and do it now? I made sure to let Him know that it was His will, not mine that would be done, and that I understood that asking didn’t mean, “get the thing that I want” but rather “whatever is best for me will happen.” And that I was okay with that. I let Him know that my going to church wasn’t this token, that I’d suddenly stop going once I got what I wanted or even if I didn’t. That this effort I was making was going to continue no matter what.

I know that some people might not understand my thought process at the time like why was this such a monumental thing, why I felt like this was a good sacrifice. I was not a hellion or sinning off the scale but I was definitely accustomed to a lifestyle that did not include piety or reverence. It meant giving up some of the things that I enjoyed doing because I knew they were wrong. It meant breaking out of the comfort zone I had established. It also meant confronting my past. My ex-husband’s family went to the church my grandparents attended and I was worried how I would be treated upon my return. It turned out to be unfounded but this step, at the time I was making it, was not just a “Hey, I’ll go sit in a chapel and that’ll be good enough, right?” I knew it was a choice to operate my life differently than it was right then.

So, I closed my prayer and called my grandmother asking to go to church with her and grandpa the next day. She was so surprised and delighted and agreed to have me join them. I got off the phone and began to wonder if I had anything to wear. When I left my ex’s house, I didn’t plan on going to church ever again, so, I left all of my skirts and blouses there. I started to feel a seed of panic, wondering if I had taken any with me and began to search through the containers of clothes that I don’t wear on a regular basis. In the bottom of the last container I looked in, there was one skirt which was sky blue. As I pulled it out, I started to cry as I thought about the recent pretty shirts that my mother had bought me for my birthday. 3 of them that would not match at all and one that almost matched the color perfectly. I knew that I had to go then because it was such an odd coincidence. A trail of events that couldn’t have happened any other way.

The next morning, I put on my neon colored, ratty old sneakers because they were the only pair of shoes I owned. I get down to my grandparents house and learn that my aunt, whom my grandparents were visiting after I called, had a pair of sandals that were my size that she’d bought on a stellar sale. My aunt Laurie’s got different sized feet than me but she’s got the eye for sales, so, she had bought the shoes in case someone needed them. Grandma and grandpa show up and let her know that it’s a strong possibility that somebody does. So, I get down there and find these shoes that go nicely with my outfit, so that I don't have to wear sneakers in my dress, making everything complete.

Again, some people may not understand, or say “it’s just an outfit.” Growing up in the church, I knew how you’re supposed to dress, not only your Sunday best but dresses for the women and girls. I could have always asked my sister for a dress or my mother for one of her old ones, or if I absolutely had to, I would have worn my pants and sneakers for my first day back. But as a returning member, after so long away, and going back into a possibly volatile situation with people I used to know, or what I feared, waiting for someone to smack the hammer down on me for things I’d done while away, it was one more assurance for me to personally have, that at the very least, the dress was taken care of. That for my first day back, I didn’t have to worry about that.

And of course, all my fears were for naught anyway. My other family who I’d not mended things with were just so happy to see me back that all was forgiven. My ex’s family, although we didn’t have opportunity to speak the first couple of days, expressed their love for me and welcomed me back. I wasn’t excluded or hounded or reprimanded. There was just love. I had been missed. And in continuing to go, I realized I had missed this so much as well.

Despite my words to Heavenly Father during my prayer, I wasn’t wholly committed to a religious lifestyle. I prayed again several times letting Him know, I’d go back and follow his lead. Whatever was asked of me, that was what I would do. My mantra became, “I am here to hear what I need to hear.” But I wanted to see and feel and be a part of this plan, if only to feel myself as a cog without any real understanding of where it was all going in the end. First day back, the 4^th of September, I was really nervous and just taking everything in and listening for messages from Heavenly Father in the things that people said not only to me directly but during the lessons and talks.

I had a couple of experiences then that convinced me to return. Just small things that affected me. Like a week before going back, I was watching videos by Steven Crowder and ArmouredSkeptic on Youtube about the founding of this country. I was in the first class in Sunday school and my uncle, David, who was teaching the class, was leading a discussion about the founding of the church. A big part of this had to do with an explanation of Christ establishing the authority of his church while alive and then the Great Apostasy during the Middle Ages, followed by the founding of this country which allowed religious freedom and the ability for the church and gospel to be restored. This stuff that was just recently on my mind, coming from more secular sources was being reaffirmed on the spiritual side of things. It was like Heavenly Father knew the things I had been watching and listening to recently and decided to add onto the discussion, "And here's how I made it happen..."

So, the next week, I went back, and Mimi, who I remembered from my time going to church before but never really got to know, had come back after a long absence as well. In Relief Society, the women’s class during the third hour of church, she gave an announcement before class, talking about a daycare that had recently been closed in Hallstead. She wanted to reopen it and needed help from volunteers to spruce the place up a bit. Apparently, the previous owner had left the place bare bones with white walls and plywood structures everywhere(and that's after being open for about 3 years). She was asking for help painting the walls because she wanted to make the place colorful. And then she says “murals” and I said to myself, “This can’t be a coincidence… Here I am, a mural artist, looking to start up working again for the fall, and it's my second time in church to ‘hear and listen’ and this lady says she needs a mural artist. I hear you, Lord. I hear you.” So, I raised my hand and offered to help.

I worked all through October painting a beautiful ocean-themed mural and Mimi was so impressed with my work that she asked me to do more for the entire center, with pay. It was right around this time that I learned her story. Since her kids had all started going to school, Mimi wanted to start up a business, something to put her energy into. She saw that there was a lot of need in her community in Hallstead and she tried to buy a couple of businesses. The first one was a hair salon but the bank said the place didn’t make enough profits so they weren’t willing to loan her the money to get it. Then she looked at a bar and it was fine on profits but the owners were asking too much. She was just about to give up and try and open her online business with the soaps and lotions she knew how to make but that presented some hurdles of its own. Then her foster daughter came home and told her that the daycare center where her two daughters went was shutting down a week earlier than promised. The day the daycare closed its doors was September 2^nd…the same day my family and I got hit with our terrible drama. I felt another tug at my heart, understanding that this had been set up by Heavenly Father as well. What had seemed like a tragedy to me was an opportunity in disguise, putting Mimi on a trajectory to cross paths with me.

I still don’t know what the future holds for this mural thing. Is there more? Am I waiting for something more to come? Or is this just a profitable venture? It hasn’t solved the drama in our lives but it has opened new avenues for me. Not only a deep friendship and connection with Mimi, who I’d never gotten to know before but also marketing-wise to showcase my ability to paint not only wildlife for hunters but also kid-friendly murals as well. Plus, I found a bit of independence in working long hours and working alone and a new way of premixing the paints.

I do know that one of the reasons was to bring me to scripture study. Near the end of October, I finished the ocean mural and Mimi let me know that she wanted me to do the “magic garden” walls in the main room. But she also had plans to open before Thanksgiving and I wasn’t sure how I’d finish 3-4 murals before then. So, I stayed over at my Aunt Wendy’s house for 4 days each week for 2 weeks, going into the center 5 days each week, 13 hours each day, to paint in order to get the work done.

Before going to stay with them, my sister, who frequently stays over there, told me that their family does scripture study in the evenings. I was dreading and anticipating having to sit around in the living room all stuffy and trying to pay attention to a seminary-like class. I was surprised instead when the family gathered in the Master bedroom and right at the start, got down on their knees beside the bed to pray. I almost started crying realizing this was their routine, that these parents were teaching their children the humbleness of prayer on their knees beside their bed. Just the absolute reverence and intimacy of it touched me and I felt moved by the Spirit. Then they got up and sat on the bed together reading from scriptures on their tablets and ipads. And it wasn’t stuffy like I’d worried about, instead occasional fun poked here and there, uncle David making us all laugh as he teasingly interrupted the girls reading to sing “Tomorrow! Tomorrow!” like Annie because of the verses saying “To morrow” repeatedly in different places.

I went home for the weekend the first week and felt a surreal disconnect, like I’d be going home to a dream place. I realized I loved the feeling of the Spirit in their home and the warmth of reading the scriptures together. So, it was firmed in my mind at this time that I needed to start reading them with my siblings and that it was a possible reason I had been prompted to come back to church.

I’ve finished the murals and taken a break from the daycare center to finish other commissions for the winter and work on my writing a little bit. I’ve also been reading the scriptures with my siblings every night for the past several weeks and I was surprised and my heart overjoyed to find them thirsty for this. They’re still a little rambunctious at times but this is definitely something they look forward to and which they miss when we are not able to do it. It has also helped me, my understanding of the scriptures deepening to something different than it had been before. I remember being interested in the scriptures but I don’t remember being as involved or looking to them as an actual tool. They were a cool story back then and like any fandom, you get to know the headcanons for it. Now, I feel a desire to bring them to life for me, to apply them for their messages and to understand.

What had started as a very passive role in this return has slowly evolved for me, progressively becoming more and more committed by the day. This past stake conference, we heard several speakers talk about the temple and temple work and the glorious experiences and blessings people have had from entering the temples and being in them. Something else I needed to hear? It felt like before that, it was sort of set in the back of my mind that I’d never really get to go to the temple again. I divorced my husband after a temple marriage and I’d done things while away that would make me unworthy of re-entering. It would take a lot of repentance and work to get back to where I had been. I remember several weeks ago when the sister missionary, Sister Anderson, sat beside me in sacrament meeting and excitedly asked me if my ultimate goal was to return to the temple. I hesitantly told her “yes” to please her but in my heart still felt held back by these insecurities.

Those speakers at stake conference made it clear, talking about the healing power of being in the temples and doing temple work, Heavenly Father again trying to prompt me about what his will is. Let’s say that it was no accident me going back, that the drama that happened was for me going back. What if I am supposed to do something in the church? What if I'm meant to be here for some purpose to be a tool for Him to use? Even something as small as a teacher, strengthening others testimonies. I’d be severely hindering my ability to do His work if I stopped at sacrament meeting and said “That’s enough. I’ll stick with this but go no further.” All of this feels heavily orchestrated, like I had choices but that they were presented to me with intent, opportunities springing from the ground so fruitful. It feels like I'm meant to be here, right now and I cannot stop in this quest. I need to progress to the next level, to make myself available to Him and fulfill my own potential along the way.

I bear my testimony to you that I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is the true church of Jesus Christ and that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and that His prophet, Thomas S. Monson is His current prophet on the Earth today. I bear my testimony that everything Heavenly Father does for us and allows to happen to us is for our ultimate benefit, that even though we cannot see what he intends of where these trials and tragedies are leading us, He has a plan for each of us individually and will do what is best for us. I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.