Kusudamas, Cutouts, and Play-doh, oh my!

I've done more art this week than I had in months, and I loved it. I forgot how much I loved creating. 

What I've made this past week

The flower balls are called kusudamas. I first learned to make them at a summer camp a few years ago. After I learned how to make them, I became hooked and I've been making them ever since. I like to compare making a kusudama to a triathlon since there are three main parts to the process. Each kusudama is composed of 12 flowers that have five petals each. If you do the math, that comes to a total of 60 petals. You have to cut out the square for each petal, fold all of them and then glue everything together. You have to glue each petal together and then glue five flowers to each other to make one complete flower. Once you have all twelve flowers, you have to glue them together six at a time to make two halves. You don't glue all 12 at once because you want to attach a loop of string in the middle so you have something to hang it from. It's also a bit of a puzzle since you have to make sure the two halves will fit together before you glue them to each other. As you can imagine, sixty little pieces of paper scattered across a desk can create quite the mess.

My desk in the middle of the process. 

One of the kusudamas I made was for my dear friend Rowan. He is currently in the midst of a critical stem cell transplant process. I recently found out that things didn't go so well the first time, so he has to start back at square one. I wrestled with this news longer than I'd like to admit. One night last week as I was trying to fall asleep, I was thinking, "Lord, why are you making Rowan go through all of this again? Hasn't he already been through enough?" Then the thing I tell myself whenever fear tries to steal my peace came to mind: "God knew this was going to happen, and He's going to bring good out of it. Just trust Him." I also tried telling myself that same night, "Rowan trusts Jesus wholeheartedly, and it's his life, his body. If he can have faith, you can too."

Last week, I sent out Rowan's kusudama along with some Play-doh. It costed way more than I imagined it would to ship, which would usually be a thought that consumes me for hours. As that came to mind, I realized I wasn't as upset about the shipping fee as I usually would be. I then realized it was because I didn't care how much it cost. My only goal was to give Rowan a well-deserved break from his hard and let him have a bit of fun.

And then I thought, "If only it were that easy."

You see, I would switch places with Rowan in a heartbeat so he could go back to doing all the things he loves.

I wish cutting off all my hair meant that his could grow back and make the swelling in his face disappear.

I wish I could buy enough Play-doh and draw enough pictures of Bigfoot to bribe his body to accept the cells from the first attempt of the transplant.

I wish wearing my 'Rally for Rowan' shirt automatically meant Rowan was going to have a good day.

I am so thankful that Rowan's faith is so strong. It never ceases to amaze me. His positive attitude is nothing short of amazing either. There are so many things I could share, but for time's sake, here's one story that really made an impact on me.

Rowan's chemo treatment made him lose all his hair. When he noticed, he got upset. His mom thought it was because that he was losing his hair, but he said it was really because all the hair that had fallen out was making a mess that he never wanted to make in the first place.

If that's not selflessness, then I don't know what is. His selflessness is one of the many reasons why I love him so much. That's why seeing him like this hurts so much. If you're a praying person, please pray for Rowan as he continues to walk through this hard story that he has humbly received.

Rowan with his kusudama