Entrusted, Not Owned

It was a normal Monday. I was at my laptop working on website updates for the studio.

Then a text came in that no parent wants to see. There's an active shooter at your child's school. Do not come.

I felt my daughter slipping through my fingers, and there was nothing I could do.

So I prayed. Over and over, I said, "O God, by the right of Fatima, protect my daughter." Fatima is the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, and to me she's the epitome of a mother. My parents kept calling to ask if I'd heard.

Fatima was my first prayer. I went to her the way a baby goes to its mother. She's a comfort to anyone in the belly of the whale. If you've ever begged for someone you love to be okay, you know that prayer.

Then, in the middle of the panic, a feeling settled in my heart that my daughter was okay. People say "mama knows." I know the heaviness that comes over you when someone you love has died. I didn't feel it. I felt that everything would be okay, and I believe God gave me that feeling.

Soon after, they told us where the kids were being relocated. I saw them on the news, and there was my kindergartner, walking out with her classmates.

Then we learned that the security guard and two others had died protecting the children. We call them the three heroes.

Knowing and living

That day taught me something I thought I already knew. Our children are entrusted to us. They aren't ours. I couldn't protect her then, and in the end none of us can protect our children. God is the one who protects and preserves, the one who gives and takes away. Even our bodies aren't ours.

Knowing and living are two different things. You can know something your whole life, and then a moment comes that makes you experience it.

None of us are spared suffering, and each of us carries it differently. A therapist once told me to look for the roses through the thorns. That's what builds resilience. For me, the way through is remembering that God is in control, and being grateful for the time we're given with the people we love.

These are the days we remember Sayyida Fatima, and I feel blessed to even know her name. Her light carried me through that day.

Why I paint

That's what I want people to hold on to. Hope. If a painting could hold you and show you the light, that's what I'm chasing.

So I keep coming back to light through darkness. Grief, a season of uncertainty, even a blessing that's hard to see in the moment, like sleepless nights with a newborn. There's always light to look toward. It's often in our darkest moments that we find God.