Grateful am I for the local blogging community and once-local annual conference, Blissdom, which tutored me into the blogosphere. That’s where I met the beautiful and gentle-spirited artist/jewelry artisan Lisa Leonard, whom I’ve long featured in my favorite blogs, (down over to the bottom of the right column here). Thanks to the power of Instagram, which I am bonkers about, I finally purchased a hand-stamped and designed silver Lisa Leonard necklace, shown left. I love her blog and her photos because she has such a keen eye for capturing and celebrating beauty and she shares it in so many ways. She’s also a pretty brilliant marketer. I could not swing the extra expenses of this year’s Blissdom location of Dallas versus Nashville where Lisa headlined, but would have loved to hear her share her story in person.
Lisa is artful not only in her jewelry, photography, blog and marketing, she is also artful in how she lives her life. And that life includes a special little boy who has cornelia de lange syndrome. Here are some excerpts and a link to what she writes. Since I’m struggling to keep up with about everything in this third consecutive summer of aging out of autism services, each week, for a bit, I’m featuring bloggers and posts that echo my sentiments on the disAbility journey, and Lisa certainly does….
Writes Lisa in this recent post:
“There is beauty to be found in the every day. The gray clouds bring
bursts of color and texture and LIFE. The cracks in my heart have healed
to create a strength I hadn’t known before. And as new cracks form, I’m
less fearful. I want to remember that the brokenness brings beauty. The
heartbreak works it’s way to healing. It’s not in vain. There is
purpose in this journey.”
While our spirtual views and how we define broken differ some, I celebrate the glory in her view and life experience and want to share it here on “The Journey with Grace.” Lisa details the ways that things [seemingly] are not so perfect in life also pack in beauty and lessons nonetheless. This woman who is all about beauty–herself, her jewelry, her art, everything she touches–concludes of her son:
“Can a little boy with seven fingers teach me about accepting the
imperfect and finding the beauty in the every day? I know he can–because
he does. His brokenness teaches me about my brokenness. And in the
brokenness we have found love. And hope. And life.”
Thank you, Lisa. Each time a special needs mother celebrates her differently abled child, it helps the world to see the beauty in this unique experience of special needs. A world that can’t always get past appearances or behaviors or labels. Yay, Lisa. Thank you for the gift of your presence in this world. Read her full post, which introduces her summer line here.
To understand what I mean, above, about differing views, since this may be confusing to some, especially new and visiting readers here, I have written plenty about my somewhat non-mainstream views in “The Journey with Grace” “Autism/DisAbility” category and in my “Spirituality” section. But today, I’ll sum it up with a link to my friend Dawn Kirk in one of her blogs, Imagine the Shift ~ Summer Solstice: Remember Who You Really Are?
