Hope and Healing...

Isabella Gardner Museum | Boston, Massachusetts

This past weekend I had the joy of tagging along with my daughter on a very quick unexpected trip to Boston, MA. During our whirlwind of a timeframe, we had the pleasure of visiting the Isabella Gardner Museum in the downtown area. If you are not already familiar with its story, it is home to many beautiful works of art, from Rembrandt to Botticelli, curated by Isabella and modeled after a Venetian palazzo. It also includes an exquisite inner courtyard garden full of beautiful flowers and plants and statues. Built in 1898, she opened up the museum a couple years later "for the education and enjoyment of the public forever". It is currently enjoyed by people from all over the world.

And I can say we certainly did enjoy it. Its beauty actually brought me to tears. It was so very lovely from its architecture to its paintings to its garden. The extraordinarily large tapestries in one room were truly breathtaking. Isabella's vision was brought to life.

But another part of its story is not as beautiful, as it is also home to the "world's biggest art heist" where many rare and valuable pieces of her collection were stolen and never recovered. As Isabella stated in her will for the museum to remain as is, the trustees have chosen to keep the empty frames, where canvasses were crudely ripped out, on the walls in the Dutch Room gallery. This serves to not only respect her wishes of the art remaining as is, but also as a sign of hope that they will one day be returned and their beauty restored if possible.

Something unexpected was shaken within me as I was standing before not only one of a kind masterpieces, but of brokenness.

I felt the pang of beauty being ripped away heartlessly.

Of someone else's dreams being slashed for personal gain.

Of evil coming in to kill, steal, and destroy not only the artwork themselves, but also the voices of both the artists and the curator who intentionally created, acquired, and placed them in such a way to tell a story and bring joy to others.

Of the injustice.

I suppose what I was feeling was the tension between joy and sorrow.

Yes.

That's it.

Joy and Sorrow.

As we walked from room to room and corridor to corridor, I watched the faces of so many just standing in awe and appreciation of the beauty before them. And I felt it too. Despite the evidence of pure evil having made its mark, there was joy. As there is beauty from ashes, so it was here...beauty despite ashes.

Although darkness stole a piece of the story, joy and beauty could not be contained.

Joy and beauty survived despite the schemes of evil.

And hope of healing remains, in the blank spaces within the empty frames of the walls and the hearts.

I can relate to that. As I am sure you can.

The brokenness in this world assures us that we will experience pain and hardship. God's Word confirms it.

But as Believers In Jesus...

The joy of the Lord is our strength.

Hope combats despair.

Laughter is medicine.

Gratitude is key.

Forgiveness is foundational.

Justice comes from the Lord.

His Grace is sufficient.

And His promises are that He will turn all things for good for those that believe in Him and are called according to His purpose. For our good and for His Glory.

I don't know, I might just hang an empty frame on my own wall as a symbol of hope for the future and healing from the past.

~T

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