You Must Not Doubt

“‘Poor? Even if what you say is true, Rose, it does not matter, for in your failure you may bring about a greater harvest for souls than if your work is praised throughout your nation and beyond. Perhaps the failure is a necessary sacrifice. Will there be a soul one day, I wonder, who happens to stop before a painting of yours and is struck a gentle blow in his heart? Will the Holy Spirit then speak to him, because of the word you have made flesh for his eyes to see? Will he perhaps turn to God and consider the impossible question?’

‘What question, ma Mere?’

‘Is God, after all, what he says he is? If he does ask this, God will answer him. This I believe. You must not doubt it. You may never see it; you may never know for certain; it may occur far from where you live or long after your death. But, because you existed, it will occur. You came into being, and you stood firm in the cold dark places of the world, you continued to walk through the forest in winter even when all bearings seemed lost.’

...Rose returned home with a feeling of intense purpose, went straight to her studio and stared at the piles of pine cones, maple keys, wasp nests, and other treasures she had retrieved from the parks throughout the city. The pine cones spiraled inviolate on their stems. Some of the weed wings were broken, and the hive was ripped a little. Each life is like this, she said to herself. Some are burned and some are blind, and some see, and some do not see, but all are part of the texture, and the texture is beloved, for it is part of the form that the Beating Heart has made.

Then she inscribed on the canvas a drawing of the blind girl and her friend. And on another canvas the burned boy who had only eyes. She worked all night, alternating between both...”

~Michael O’Brien (from the novel A Cry of Stone)