Nurturing Your Heart
Recently, my work has led me to a place where I am exploring the nature of the heart. One of the main things that has been resurfacing for me is how powerful and yet soft the heart can be. Through my exploration of the different seasons that the heart can embark on, I noticed that by nature, the heart desires to protect and yet love authentically without fear or walls. However, things like hurt and grief can alter the appearance of the heart.
Pain and grief can leave scars and holes in the heart. While I am often spontaneous and playful in my creative process, my most recent paintings have been more intentional, taking me to a place of looking at the hearts of others and myself. My work has challenged me to ask how I can nurture my heart and the hearts of others in these different seasons and states of being when things like grief and pain arise.
I believe that we might want to get back to what our heart once was, but we need to remember that things change, and our hearts grow and change over the course of life. All that comes with living with others in this world that is beautifully made but tainted by our sinful human nature.
I think the best way to look at how to effectively nurture a person in their current heart season is to look at how Jesus loved in the Bible and share with others how Jesus has come into our own heart season and helped us heal. As Christians, we are called to love God and then love one another. Matthew 22:37-39 says it best: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” This means to love others through pain, grief, uncertainty, and any other harsh, heavy feelings that God created our hearts to feel.
The heart is such a beautiful thing, and I have been enjoying diving deeper into its beauty and depth in my work. I have been contemplating and prayerfully, allowing God to work through me, to create paintings and mixed media pieces focused on the experiences of the heart. I believe that the Lord delights in seeing us nurture our hearts and each other through both the highs of life and the lows that will come as well.
The Breath That Renews
Briana Pinell 2025