God hijacked a Google search for me.

Getting an answer in the most unexpected way.

This probably seems a bit of an odd image with my title, or an odd title with my image, but then I am odd, and there’s always a reason.

© Jane Isley

This image is called “Crushed Dreams,” created many years ago and the woman is my daughter.

It is the beginning of who I am now.

I created this during a particularly nasty storm in our lives. One I didn’t know how or even if we were going to make it through. I was carrying the weight of my daughter’s world on my shoulders because everyone else chicken crapped out when things went south for her.

It was just me and her against an entire army of medical personnel and many unknowns, and I felt like I was buried alive, with barely enough air to breathe.

And then God spoke to me, but not how you’d expect.

See, I was born with a talent but never pursued it, just doodles and some paintings here and there. Definitely a world away from what I do now.

I remember the night He set everything in motion. Imagine this: it’s about 1:30 in the morning, I'm sitting at my computer eating crackers, and I’m mad, feeling defeated, and tired.

I didn’t pray anything out loud, just thought it. “I can’t do this, I don’t know what to do, no one is listening” (give or take, it’s been a few years)

Here’s where His answer got interesting.

A photography contest. I still don’t have a clue what I typed into that Google search that pulled that up, but it wasn’t anything to do with photography, I can tell you that. lol

I can’t remember the name of the contest now, but something sparked to life in me at that moment. I had pictures of my daughter that fit the contest's brief. So, I asked my daughter if it was ok to do this, and she said go for it, so I played with the pictures and entered.

Well………Did I win or lose?

I lost😂 but I didn’t care one bit because all of a sudden, a whole new world just opened up because God hijacked Google for me.

This unexpected answer led me to explore my talent wholeheartedly, and my daughter jumped right into this world of crazy with me. That’s when “Crushed Dreams” was created; it’s from both of us and for both of us.

It tells a dual story of the burden and pains we each were carrying, her perspective and mine at the same time, all mixed together. We learned how to use art to vent, how to stand up and be heard.

It’s been a long time since we created that, with a lot of battles in between then and now. We grew stronger in God individually and together, because of that night, and our art tells that story.

God has many different ways of answering us through storms. Keep an eye out because you never know in what unusual ways He may do that.

© Jane Isley

First published in Never Stop Writing on Medium.

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