Day four of Inktober, the daily ink drawing challenge, and a green blotch showed up on the back of my page. I figured I’d wrecked the whole book. The blotch had other ideas. This week: what to do when a mistake is already on the paper and more work is stacked up behind it.
Blog Version
A couple weeks ago, I talked about doing Inktober and the preparation for that and the things I was doing. And in the preparation of doing that, I understood some things about the process. I got into like day three, and I made a mistake in my book.
A quick note before we go further. As you read this, you may begin to notice that there are similar talking points between me and Hector Miray of Faith & Fandom. We’re both talking about Inktober, and we’re kind of coming from the same jumping off point. I want to make this clear: I already had this idea before I saw his video, I’m not copying him. But this is what I do want to say also. He’s an amazing individual. Hector genuinely is a legend in the space of what we’re doing here at Geek Devotions. As far as geek culture, reaching people, he’s got a bunch of books on Amazon and he’s super kind. I want to encourage you to go follow Faith & Fandom. Check out his website and his take on the Inktober stuff, and do me a favor: go to Amazon right now. Pause and go buy a couple of his books. Go bless that man.
All right, let’s get back to it.
The Gel Pens and the Printer Paper
The thing is, I’ve been using these gel pens, and they’re cool pens, I like them, they’re fun. I’ve been struggling though on how to use them correctly. They don’t necessarily color in the way I want them to color in. I can’t seem to get the sketching portion right. I’m having to do a lot of things to work around, and I’ve discovered some stuff about it. Honestly, this paper that I’m using, which is basic printer paper, isn’t actually right for what I’m doing.
The paper’s thin, and with the gel pens, well, when you get to do heavier things, like one of my pictures where I did an onion and an ogre, it bleeds through. This has become an issue as I’ve gone through it, because things have gotten awkward.
I did a picture image for day two, and it came out nice. But one of the things I noticed is that because it was such a heavy, heavy inking job, it bled through to the other side of the page. Then it came time for day four, and the prompt was cactus, and all of a sudden I had this big gross spot on the other side of the page.
I didn’t know what to do. I was like, I’ve ruined the paper. I’ve ruined the project. I’ve set myself up for failure because I didn’t do things right. And I was kind of freaking out for a second, because I wasn’t sure what to do.
Surely I’m not the only person out there who has been in the process of doing things, getting stuff done, and all of a sudden realized you’ve made a big mistake. And not just that, that mistake has made it difficult for the things that are coming up behind it. You’ve done some things that aren’t quite right, be it on accident, neglect, whatever, and now all of a sudden there are things that you have to do, and either you can’t do them the way you wanted to do them, or you just can’t do them at all.
And there’s this temptation to freeze up, going, what am I going to do? How am I going to handle this situation?
Pause, Step Back, Get Creative
So what did I end up doing with the image? Well, the first thing I had to do was pause and go, what is happening here? I had to put myself in a different mental space. I had to look at this mistake and go, what’s actually before me? Yes, I’ve made a mistake, I’ve damaged the paper, but am I stuck here? Or do I have something else I can do?
I had to step back and be creative for a moment. I had to rest in a higher aspect than my fear. See, fear is that base level of emotion that grips every person, and it stops us from progressing forward. So I had to go to something a little bit higher. I had to find peace and calm.
And what I ended up doing was this: I took the mistake that was there, I took this ugly bleeding-out green stuff, and I ended up doing a cactus drawing with it, because that was the problem, it was cactus. So I used the green from the previous side that bled through to be part of the cactus.
I think what happens is people get so wrapped up with their fear, their anxiety, and the fact that they’ve made mistakes, they have all these things weighing down upon them, and they freeze up. But if we stop and appeal to something higher and find peace, we find that those mistakes can be redeemed.
Romans 8:28: All Things Work Together
We’ve talked about this many times on this show before, but there’s this passage in Romans chapter 8, verse 28. It says this: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28, ESV)
See, what it’s talking about here, when it says all things, that means all things. So even when there are mistakes and stuff that you’ve made, you’ve caused a problem here, God will work these things out. Why? Well, because that vocabulary of loving God means that you are working to be submitted to God. God’s not expecting you to be perfect, but as you submit to God, you admit to what’s going on. You go, man, there’s a mistake here. God goes, all right, now let’s handle it. Let’s restore what’s been broken, let’s make clean, let’s make fresh, let’s make beautiful what is ugly in the situation at hand.
What we’re doing is we’re stopping the fear and the doubt and we’re appealing to a higher aspect, to a higher power, which is God, the one who brings peace, the one who delivers us from certain things.
Jeremiah 29:11 and the Ugly Seasons
Now, here’s the deal. When we apply this to our lives, when we lean into God, some people have this mindset that, well, if I love God, I’m doing all this stuff, nothing bad should ever happen. But we forget the fact that sometimes when God leads us, he leads us into situations that are kind of ugly, but he’s doing it for a reason.
There’s a passage that people like to quote in Jeremiah, chapter 29, verse 11. It says this: “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11, ESV)
And a lot of people quote that going, man, God’s going to take care of me, but they forget the context, which is that they’re about to go into a very long, multi-generational timeframe of captivity. Not good times. But he’s telling them to bunker down, because in those times of hardship, he’s preparing them for something else that’s going to take place.
So you may have made a mistake, but understand that God’s going to work you through that mistake, because he’s going to prepare you for something better, for something going forward.
What I’ve Learned
In the case of this booklet, what I’ve learned is, okay, next time I make one of these binders, or one of these little booklets for myself to do art, I need to get a thicker paper.
At the same time, it taught me to look at things differently and go, all right, so I have this aspect here. Let me see how I can use this to make something better.
In your life where you’ve made mistakes, you’re going to learn how to do things so that you don’t make that mistake again, but you also learn to go, all right, I’ve done something that’s not right, but let me do something, not to hide the mistake, but to use it to make something better, to make something beautiful. And it could be anything from restoring what’s in the situation, to simply learning how to teach people a better way.
Now I’m here telling you that this paper I’m using, I love it, this is a great little notebook, but this paper’s not great for these gel pens. I’m going to finish it, I’m committed to the bit of trying to do gel pens, although I’m about to lose my mind on these gel pens. If you have any suggestions, let me know.
But I know now what I need to do. And if there are mistakes, if there are bleed-throughs, which there have been several little bleed-throughs, I know how to deal with them now, how to make them work to the benefit of the situation.
So What Are You Dealing With?
What is the situation you’re in? Well, appeal to something higher. Don’t get stuck in the fear, the doubt, the anxiety that you’ve messed up. Appeal to something higher. Go to the Lord, find peace, and let him give you wisdom so you can move past this moment.
