The 7th Year- Week 4: Clenched fists, open hands

My life scroll, from The 7th Year.

She spoke of clenched fists and open hands this week. Clench fists provide a delusion of ownership, while open hands require trust and stewardship. 

I can see parallels between this truth statement and my life scroll I’ve been creating along with The 7th Year project, but I struggle to verbalize them. 

I’m adding a picture of my life scroll with the hopes that it’s blurred enough that it can’t be read by the entire world wide web. I decided to use paper I had at home rather than Alicia’s suggestion of tracing paper, and since I homeschool, I had HUGE paper with seven lines already drawn! (I hope it turns out ok in the end....we still have a few weeks of layers to add.) 

This week, we were asked to add another layer to our life scroll....a layer of thinking about what I thought about myself throughout my life’s ages and stages. What a task this turned out to be! I had to step away from the project for a day to gain perspective on  my adjectives and observations. 

Looking through this list of descriptors causes enough different feelings to fill a box of crayolas. Times of triumph, hard work are followed by deep pain; an ebb and flow of internal reactions to external actions. Interestingly enough, it seems that as I have grown up, the peaks and valleys have become less extreme. The joys are awesome, but my response is less elevated and the hurtful moments are still present, but my perspective of myself is less low. 

As I work on my life scroll and all the layers Alicia adds, I am thankful for her reminder that God is and has always been present. During the second week, I even wrote “I knew God knew” as part of my spiritual movement. I know this probably doesn’t make sense to those not participating in The 7th Year, but I wanted to document it. 

So, what is my ultimate reaction to this week’s addition to the life scroll? I am sad that one, two or a few individuals (depending on the time in my life) can have such a strong impact of how I perceive what’s happening around me. People can hurt others. People have hurt me. But God knew and he was there despite their hurt and he hurt too. BUT, I am thankful that people can also help heal. Other people have been a part of my growth and healing. And God knew that too.