Hello and welcome to restoring the soul, a podcast dedicated to helping you close the gap between what you believe and what you actually experience. I'm your producer Brian Beatty. Thank you for listening. On this edition of the podcast, Michael welcomes Sheila page to the conversation. And not too long ago, Sheila experienced the tragedy of betrayal, trauma, and discovered the path to healing through painting. And as a result, she found the faithfulness of a creator who loves her in her pain. Although this podcast is in audio format, we trust you'll still be able to visualize Sheila's beautiful artwork, which she and Michael will describe that we hope will prompt you to see it for yourself. We believe her book healing one brushstroke at a time will make a great gift for someone this holiday season. We've put the link to the book in the show notes, as well as other links to podcasts we have produced that deal specifically with betrayal trauma. So Now without any further delay, here's your host, Michael John Hughes. Sheila Paige, welcome to the restoring the soul podcast. Thank you, I'm so glad to be here. You, you hold the record, you are in Bangkok, Thailand as we speak 1am Your time and it is 11am in Colorado. So thank you for staying up into the early hours of the morning to talk with me. I just feel honored and privileged to be able to do this. So thank you. Well, I'm honored and privileged to be able to talk with you about your book and your journey. I met you probably 16 months ago, somewhere a year and a half ago, as you asked me to endorse your book. And I love to brag about books that friends of mine have written and acquaintances that I know. And I consider you a friend now that we've interacted face to face, but this book is just extraordinary. And we're not going to do a video of this, but I'm going to hold it up anyway so that it's the Brian or engineer could see this. The book, of course is called Healing one brushstroke at a time, expressions of betrayal and beauty. And I was touched that you put my endorsement on the cover of it. And I want to I want to just frame our conversation with the brief outtake from my endorsement about healing one brushstroke at a time, I said with intimate glimpses into the heartbreak and hope of her own unexpected journey. Sheila page blends vivid prose with her own soul stirring paintings through which she unexpectedly processed her own trauma. So this is a book that came out of your own betrayal, trauma, and pain and dark night of the soul. Can you can you tell us a little bit about that journey? Yes, so I'm a missionary kid and a missionary as well. And I've been with married for over 30 years. So my journey did end up in divorce and 2020, which was just very heartbreaking. The whole, the whole journey, from the day until that time was was very hard and traumatic, as many women who listened to this, I know will understand and relate to but in January 2020 When I realized things were definitely falling apart. And that marriage probably wasn't gonna make it I turned to painting. It actually came from a conversation with my daughter who was going home to her cat. And she said, Mom, my cat, such good pet therapy. And then I was thinking, well, I need some kind of gear. And what do I have at home, when I go home, I'm just going home to an empty apartment. And I thought, well, maybe I'll buy canvas and just see but I have never thought of myself as artistic I've never painted. So I bought a canvas and tried it with a YouTube video and couldn't get it all for what I did on the canvas to look anything like that. But eventually it just began to paint my feelings and my conversations with God and a lot of colors and textures and just the images. I felt like God gave me to comfort me and that those paintings became just part of my healing journey. I felt like through the painting. Yeah, it just was something about it. It was so healing to me. And then it also give me way to begin to share my story when I couldn't even put words to my story of it gives me a way to start to share that as well. I can't believe as I look at the paintings in the book even now with the book confront of me that you had never painted, and that you went to, you know, the proverbial YouTube video with a blank canvas. I in the endorsement and I mean this now that the paintings are soul stirring, and art is subjective, right so people can look at the Mona Lisa, and go, Oh, that's an interesting painting and other people can be deeply moved by it. And so it really is kind of a relative perspective about something but I'm looking on right before chapter 33. And you've got brief devotional like, chapters, which I love, I love short books. I'm still a kindergartener, really, really like Dr. Seuss books. But there's a painting that a painting that you did called Jesus weeps. And it just draws me in. And initially, I don't feel a particular sense of sadness, or anxiety or pain or heaviness. But I'm just drawn to all of the variety in it. And I might have mentioned this to you in an email. But my favorite artist is Marc Chagall, who died in the early 1970s. He was born in the late 1800s. In Russia, he was an immigrant to France, and then to the US. And he was known as the artist of color. Picasso was known as the one of bizarre forms, and a contemporary should Gaul was who went into color. And so all of your paintings play with a variety of color, but your style is very Chagall, like where there's kind of a central image or figure. And then you have peripheral images and figures in this one in particular, it's the face of Christ, and he's weeping. And then all around it, you have six different images that appear to be images of children. And yet, also, what I'm what I'm imagining to be your own experience in that so wasn't wasn't anticipating going here right away. But can you talk about that? Can you talk about that painting? So Jesus? Which one? Yes, yes. It just felt throughout this process that I felt the heartbreak of my little girl self, that always dreamed that the prince charming, and the marriage and the family and the thought that Jesus wept with Mary and Martha is just so powerful to me, and to think of his sorrow in their sorrow, even though he knew he was going to raise Lazarus from the dead, but he felt their sorrow. There were so many times when I was his weeping on the floor, when I couldn't get up, where I felt him weeping with me that his heart was broken to. And as I was going through this journey, of course, the world was also going through the me to movement and church too. And I kept hearing story after story of others, who have been hurt and even talked to some friends. And just in my own past, I remember when I was in boarding school as a 12 year old away from my parents for the first time. And a 13 year old MK down the hallway, when I came in my room and swore me to secrecy, and shared the story of her dad coming to her room at night. And she didn't even say what he did, but it was just I could tell it was so horrible, and then thinkable and my mind couldn't even comprehend it. But now as I look back, I thought that for me, it was a time where I, I took on her shame and and hit that with her. And we were just a little girls. And, and I just think that Jesus was weeping with her. He's wept with me. And that image of him weeping. This just been a very precious one to me. And each of the images around the face, they imply different states of pain and trust and dependency. One of them is a little girl weeping and the teddy bear is beside her. And my heart and my body do feel a sense of heaviness at that like the very thing that would comfort this little girl the teddy bear is away from her and she's turning away from it, and can't access it. Another is a picture of what looks like a girl climbing, what's either a rope or a wall. And there's a again, a puppy down near her feet. And the puppy is rather at attention, staying in place and the girl's feet hands are covering her face and just again separate from and away from soothing and the beauty of art and I did not prepare any of my comments here. I'm just interacting with you but the beauty of art is that I see the face of Christ so central in the middle of the painting and then around it are all these images and that, in one sense, Jesus is not taking away the pain. Jesus is not there, stroking her her experience her felt experiences, she's alone. And even the puppy is away from her. And yet the image of God is in the midst of it and there are tears coming down his face. So what have you come to believe or know about the power of art now that you are a painter? Because you you cannot say that you are not a painter any longer. Okay? Yeah. Oh, yes, I think that those images by two, well, there's a couple of things, but actual putting them on the canvas has been so healing to me. There's something I love bigger canvas, the better to swirl as paints on those canvases. But to be able to look at that image. My, my former husband had an office in our room, and it's like, you'd walk out into from my bedroom straight into his office. And when he left that just became such a sad room. To me. It was all his things and memories. And as I began painting, I just covered the walls with paintings, and made that into my art studio added to see those images to be able to walk daily. And look at one after another in their promises of God that He is weeping with me. He is there with me is comforting me. I'm safe with him. Each image speaks to me. And so I just have now I have images all over my house. But it is it's like those visual reminders of who he is and how he is walking this with me. I'm just so grateful for for images for art. Do you mind if I continue to ask you about some of the other paintings I don't mind. I've always kind of fantasize about being in a museum last. Last summer, I got to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and grew up in Cleveland. And there's a world class art museum there. And every time I travel to a city try to go to a to a museum. And I've always fantasized about looking at the pictures and having the artists stand there beside me. So I feel very spoiled right now. In contrast to the tears of Jesus painting, at the beginning of chapter 31, there's a painting that you've been titled called Dancing in the kitchen. And you have the verse from Psalm 30, verse 11, you turn my wailing into dancing, you remove my sackcloth and clothe me with joy. And I am drawn to this again, because of the colors and the images. But also, the big contrast between the whole point of the book is that there was a deep, deep wound, there was there was ongoing pain, and that dancing was not the norm on your journey of recovering. So tell me about this painting. Yeah, and even when I painted that dancing was not happening at all, there was weeping and wailing, a lot of sadness, a lot of tears, but I was actually had a zoom conference with one of my counselors during the pandemic and couldn't see him in person. And we were talking and I kept saying things like, I don't want this turn me into a bitter old woman, I don't want this to, you know, Wall me off where where I, I hide from the world the rest of my life. And then he just asked, Well, what do you want to have happen while you're telling what you don't want? But let's think about what you do want. And this little story just popped in my mind. And I'm pretty sure it comes from a patsy Claremont that from probably 30 years ago in my early married years, where she shared a woman who had gone through a divorce and how heartbroken she was. But then the story of her daughters walking into the kitchen, her adult daughters come to her house, they can't find their mom, they walk in the kitchen, the music's on so loudly and she's dancing with her mom and for the daughters to see that healing in a life destroyed. So when, when Chad, my counselor asked me, What do you want that came to my mind? I said, I want to dance in the kitchen, you know, and at that time, I couldn't picture the singing or the dance scene. It just seemed impossible because the the the very thing I didn't want to have happen was happening. The divorce was happening. My marriage was crumbling. And that that just seemed a dream. But I immediately after talking to him, I thought I want to capture that and I'm going to put that there on the wall. So that I see that and I remember that. That's my goal. That's where I'm moving towards. I'm moving towards dancing in the kitchen. I think of Proverbs 13, that tells us hope deferred makes the heart sick. And so I'm so glad that your counselor asked you that question, what do you want because when we are in pain, the easiest thing to do is to focus on the negative or what we don't want and make the pain go away, or don't let this happen in the future. And it really does require faith to hope. And to say what I want is something that I have absolutely no control over, and I can barely see it right now. In the picture, there is a darkness to it in terms of most of the tones are dark purple, dark blue, and then there's some yellow gold in it. But there's the image of the woman. And that's you, presumably based on the story you just told, and what strikes me as there's long flowing hair, and that there's gold in the hair. And then there's a window, right outside of a counter. But outside of the window, it's dark. And that's what's striking to me is even as you look out the window, it's still night, presumably, or maybe like in some of the places in Bangkok, I've been there at least once there's a tall building, and you're looking at a building right next door. But in the window up high, there's a tea pot, and the tea pot is yellow, gold with pink. And I imagine that you'd like to drink tea, is that correct? That's correct. Yes, I grew up the missionary kid from Zimbabwe, we have our tea time. And that is actually based on a teapot that I have from Zimbabwe. So Wow. And, and then down below, on the very base of the window on the window sill there's not one but two yellow gold tea cups. And to me, that's a picture of connection and relationship and invitation. I would hope that I know it was quarantined, but that you got to have tea a fair amount with loved ones or friends, especially when your husband wasn't there. But the the cups are down on the sill on either side of the window and then the teapot is up sitting as if it were a shelf on the crosshatch of the the window and it looks very Trinitarian I don't know if you painted that intentionally I know that a lot of art comes out unconsciously Yes, but it's very Trinitarian of, of the tea in the water of the tea would flow downward from up above. And then next to that there's a a candlestick, and there's a white light coming up out of it. And then below the teapot. There's two small vases with a single stem of flowers. And it's just beautiful. That contrast of the tea that nourishes the soul and hydrates the body with the flowers underneath the beauty. The candlestick, and it's still dark out, or usually don't can't see the light. And that contrast that in this in this quote, simple painting you have you have literally illustrated and painted all of these these difficult tensions of life and faith but especially a difficult tension of healing from trauma and betrayal trauma in particular, even the tension of the person that you would turn to and want the most to comfort you as the one who has betrayed you. And the one whom has made your heart break. Anything else you'd like to say about this painting because I could just go on and on and on. And I've got the artist right here. No, I just for me, it was a goal and a hope and a dream of the future. And is that a mop or a broom that you're holding in your hand and it's a mob. Okay, and so you're dancing with the mob, Dancing with the mob. I love it. I love it. Somebody might look at this picture or hear the story and go Well that's not very hopeful to be dancing with a mob but I see this picture is very hopeful. And sometimes we have to look hard and see with the eyes of our heart Ephesians 118 I think it is where St Paul prays for us that we would see with the eyes of our heart and sometimes I think we need to see with the eyes of our heart that which on the surface doesn't look very hopeful. Okay, no doubt that that dancing with them off I can see how it might not sound hopeful. But to me it just spoke with contentment and satisfaction. And I was you know I was a little girl from when I was very young. I always had a crush on somebody or knew who I liked and I was always around people I was very social. And because I ruined My sister's and then college roommates and got married young, there was always someone else in the picture, right? I was never alone, and had never even spent like nights alone in my apartment. So even as a grown woman, my whole life had been around family and people and connection. So to live alone, but to be satisfied and happy in that like, That, to me is a miraculous thing of God. And I feel like it has happened. There's still of course, of course, there's still hard days, I'm still early in my my journey. But I do feel like the amount of healing that I've seen God that he has done in my heart, I know it's him. It's miraculous, and, and I can only sing and dance because of him. So I'm very grateful for that. Well, and that, that gratitude plays out. Now, as I look at you, there's a very big smile on your face that just, it looks so genuine. And all throughout the book, there's gratitude that plays out as well. I want to ask you went from doing this painting, which initially was I don't know how to do this and kind of therapeutic and experimental, how do you go from doing that to saying I want to write a book and put my paintings in it? Because a lot of people I know that paint, they never show their paintings to anybody. And you put it out there for the world to see. Yes, well, I certainly plan to that all at the beginning. In fact, for some reason, at first, all I could paint were eyes, and I just was painting I after I was I was trying to capture emotion or what's happening in AI and and then as I started to paint more, and just sharing it with family, sharing them with my mom, people, you know, really encouraged me to share them with others. So I went to the States and 2021 that summer for my daughter's wedding. And then when I came back to Thailand at that time, we had to spend 15 days in quarantine. So you're in a hotel room alone, and you're not allowed to be with anyone, no human interaction. So just had to spend those 15 days alone. And all summer when I was in the States, my mom and business saying you should write about what these mean and the story behind each one. So I just started to compile the paintings that I had done and the meanings behind them. And that became the book. And I love the format of the book, you have a scripture on the cover with the painting there. And then there's a brief devotional. And then I think, out of all the books I've seen where there are questions that are discussion questions, or kind of journaling, therapeutic questions, these are some of the best questions I've ever seen. And I have to be honest, I endorse a fair amount of books, and I read a lot of books. And sometimes it seems like and I know authors, who after they're done with the book, six months later, the publisher says, Hey, we need some questions, we're gonna make this a discussion thing. And they're almost an afterthought. But yours are both really reflective. And also some that are just information driven, like, Hey, here's something you need to think about. But a question like, for example, on page 171, do you believe that your broken world can produce beauty? And then something as simple as how has your personal journey impacted your view of marriage? So I won't go through all the questions, but I just thought you did a really great job with that. So kudos to you for that. And, yeah, I was just thinking as a betrayed wife, myself, I, I didn't have a resource that kind of captured all these things. For me, I kept thinking, what do I wish I had been handed, you know, when my life fell apart, and for me, D Day is my discovery day. This closure day is actually this weekend, seven years ago. And I think back that that day, when my world was shattered and secrets were disclosed. What do I wish had been handed to me and I couldn't take in tons of information. I think trauma does that where you're, you can hardly concentrate. And so I thought if I did bite sized, and the paintings gave away to do that. So this could be used as a six week devotional, there's 42 paintings that I talked about. But then I also thought if I'd had questions, if it the paintings helped me reflect and thought, if I can give questions that might help other women do that, and then I include a glossary in the back of all these terms I've learned it really is like learning a whole new language. I feel like I'm a totally different person than I was seven years ago, when when my wife one my wife does kind of imploded and I just think all that I have learned, I don't want it to be wasted and I I feel for every woman that that has an ear hears those conversations or discover something. And their whole life completely shifts, everything that they thought they knew, is no longer that way. It's like you enter a whole new world, I just wanted this book to be that resource in something that even if they can't concentrate on reading, they can look at the images or answer a question. But something that that is very practical, and maybe could help even know of some resources, I list resources, just some things that maybe that could help them be the next steps. But for everybody that has a friend going through betrayal trauma, like my wish, and my hope would be this would be something you could give them right away, that might help them in those beginning stages. Yeah, thank you for for saying all that. Because you answered a question. I wasn't doing a very good job of asking because I got sidetracked. There's so much to talk about with the book. But I think your book is a great book. That's a good first book to give someone but also a book that can be a companion all along the journey. I've heard comments from women who have been deep into recovery and far along who had been really encouraged by it, or who had been reminded as they've looked at certain pictures or read certain aspects. And I love the fact that each of the chapters are their brief in their personal and yet they also have important information in it. What would you say to a woman who you're talking with who's very early in the stages of her recovery, from having it disclosed or discovering that her husband has been unfaithful or sexually addicted? Yeah, first, I just am, I'm so so sorry. It's not at all what you want to happen. The person that you loved and you dreamed, dreamed of a different story. And it's so so hard, and I'm very sorry for anyone that goes through that, especially Christian women who trusted their husbands and, and believed the words that that were spoken to them and the vows that were spoken. But I would also really encourage any woman to make sure she's talking to someone, I feel like, especially for those of us in ministry, you can, because your desire to honor him and for him not to lose his job. Like, there's a lot of reasons not to tell people, and to try to just make things work and try to figure things out. And so my first thing would be find someone you can tell as a safe person, a friend, a counselor, but it's too heavy to carry alone. And then there are just there are resources out there. And I just think I don't even think if this has happened 20 years ago, you know, the internet, like I don't know what I would have done here in Thailand had my world falling apart, then I'm just so grateful. Like I listen to your podcast every week, I found your book immediately, to have those kinds of resources that you can find, you can look up these terms, I have just been so grateful there is support out there. And so I would encourage any woman to find, find that support, there's people that have walked this road before you and they're willing to help. Even though each story is individual, there are things that connect and that I just, I just hang on to other people's stories. And I hung on to hope and hearing other women that had, like made it through, I just wanted to hear that over and over again, like you can survive this. Thank you for all of that. As you approach the seven year anniversary of D Day, as you just mentioned, you also said that you are a completely different person and in what ways have you been changed? And in what ways are you completely different because nobody ever imagines that they're just I hope I get through this. I hope that God somehow heals my marriage, but I want the pain to go away. And we don't think this far ahead. But there's something hopeful about the fact that we are and we become different people, how have you been changed. I immediately think of the word brokenness, like being able to be okay with being broken, being able to see beauty and brokenness. I think of, of finding a, a deeper, bigger picture of God, and then maybe my formulas or the way it was supposed to be I think I had all these things like, I was a virgin when I got married, I married another missionary kid, I did the right things. And I was supposed to have a marriage that lasted forever. You know, our parents were married for over 50 years like I did the right things and then when life doesn't go that way you're confronted with do I believe the things I say I believe do I believe that that Jesus is enough that he's sufficient? Do I believe that the gods spool is real. Do I believe that God can use me, even when, in my mind, this terrific failure has happened because to me, I always was raised that they never ever get a divorce. So when when all that's happened, I think just face with what do I really believe, and just seeing that God's grace and His compassion. And I think a lot, just learning about addiction was so, so helpful to me. I, I think I Now lean towards thinking, as I hear quoted, I think George May is the name of the author about grace and addiction, where that we all have addictions. And I think that we all turn to other things. And I find myself on the days when I'm lonely and sad, I want to escape in a fiction book, or I want to scroll on social media or I want to eat a comforting meal, right? I think recognizing that recognizing that my former husband was also escaping his own pain, learning about trauma, all those things have made me a more compassionate person. Because I realized we're all we're all in this sin nature together, right? We're all in this human, broken world. And yet God's grace is so so beautiful. And maybe when we've seen the ugliness of sin, it helps us see the beauty of God more. Yeah, those are some thoughts that come to mind, in areas that I think I've grown and sing out differently. Well, thank you for for anyone listening, your story is hopeful, and helpful. And your book is helpful and extremely hopeful in that way. And even the little bit that you just shared, it's a to me it is just so makes me think of in Genesis, as Joseph says before his brothers of what you intended for evil, or what was intended for evil that God will use for good and to think that out of the ashes and the pain and the heartbreak of all that you just described, that those things would grow. That's what's so beautiful and surprising about God. Your your book is just filled with heart and soul. So I'm hopeful that many more people will experience it. Sheila, it is now close to two in the morning for you in Bangkok, Thailand. So I just want to say again, thank you for your time, thank you for the the heart and the work that went into this book, and bless you, and all that you're doing in your ministry there and in your ministry outside of what you do by day. School. Thank you very much. And I am so thankful for your podcast. And I have learned so much from listening in and your guests and I just feel like that has been such a help on my journey. So thank you very much. So thank you for listening to another episode of restoring the soul. We want you to know that restoring the soul is so much more than a podcast. What we're all about is helping couples and individuals get unstuck. You know how some people go to counseling or marriage therapy for months or even years and never really get anywhere. Our intensive programs help clients get unstuck in as little as two weeks. To learn more visit restoring the soul.com That's restoring the soul.com