Hey, my name is Jenedy, and I’m an artist and a mother, an athlete. And 12 years ago, when my son passed away, there was this concept for a painting that came into my heart. And I’ve waited 12 years to actually bring it to the canvas. And I want to tell you the story behind it. And ultimately, it brings us to the idea that God is there, ready to catch us in all of our falls. In 2011, I had a three-year-old and a one-year-old,

and we moved in with my parents. And they had a swimming pool, and a perfect storm arose and I pulled my three-year-old out of the pool. My son was in the hospital for seven weeks, and I waited for a miracle, but instead God took my son home.

I just, in my mind, just wanted to press the rewind button. I just wanted to go back so, so desperately to that morning before it all happened. And you can't.

I kept asking this question like, do accidents just happen? Like, was this just a bad day for me? Sorry, Jenedy, that was a bad day for you.

But every time that I went to that, like, did this just happen,

God would take me to Matthew 10:29–31 where Christ says, “Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing?

and one shall not fall without your Father.”

And every time God would be like, “Jenedy.

Of course I was aware of your son. Of course I’m aware of you.”

And so ever since that time, I've had this desire to paint like a sparrow, falling into very capable hands, just waiting because I could always see my son as this little bird that the Lord caught.

But it's funny because as I was preparing to do this painting and in the sketching and the writing that preceded it,

I came to this really beautiful realization when God was just like,

“Jenedy, you’re the sparrow, too. I caught you.”

And you know I have the privilege now of looking back over the past 12 years and seeing all the ways that the Lord saved me, that He caught me, and that the Atonement of His Son, Jesus Christ, really does work in our lives to help heal the deepest of wounds.

I think it's really easy to look at the world. It's so sad, like how come bad things happen all the time? If there's a God that loves me, then why would he have let my son die?

But as an artist, one thing that I've learned is that I have this perspective of my painting from the beginning to the end.

And so even in the hard points, even when the painting doesn’t look so good, I know where it's going. And I feel like that perspective really kind of helps me understand God and that He knows us from the beginning to the end, and He knows where He’s taking us, and He knows the things that we’re going to have to go through to get to where we need to be. One thing that's really unique in my painting process is I scrape in between layers. I want to build up layers of paint to get the depth that's in human skin, but I don't want all the texture that comes in creating layers. And so I take a razor blade and I scrape the surface, and it’s scary. Like every time, I’ve done this so many times, but you're still kind of like holding your breath as you’re scraping this razor blade across. Like I always think about

these refining moments in my life when I’m— when I’m painting and I’m scraping and I’m thinking about all the times that I’ve been through that really did hurt,

but it provided a fresh place for God to build from. You know, my son was three and then he would have been five going to kindergarten, and then he would have been— You know, every fall when everybody was going into the new grades, like, it’s just like this new kind of takes your breath you’re just like, he would have been in fifth grade today. He would have been 16 today, you know. And so what's so beautiful, though, is that in all of those moments of grief that come back, I feel God is there to catch me in them over and over again.

I think that, you know, as I'm sitting here painting like every little feather and these little tiny bird talons and the little texture, the little ridges on the feet, I think about how I’ve come to know this bird and its creation,

and how our Creator also knows us because He created us and because Jesus Christ purchased us through His Atonement.

He knows our infinite value. These hands took an incredibly long time.

I think there's maybe three layers,

and each layer took about an hour and a half to two hours per finger, one little finger at a time.

One thing that I kept thinking of while I was painting them was just that God has really capable hands.

His Son has very capable hands,

and that His Son’s hands can do everything that He promised that they could. I like these hands because they represent God catching us, but they also represent you and me because we are His hands sometimes, right? Yeah. So sometimes the hands are God’s and sometimes they’re yours, and sometimes the bird is your brother. And sometimes the bird is me.

And sometimes the bird might be you. So the painting is done 100 hours later. It's signed. But really, a painting isn't totally finished until it has been shared with other people. And so tonight I had a group of friends and neighbors come to the studio, and I was able to share my story with them.

But what's so beautiful about art is that I bring my story to the canvas, and my neighbors and friends, they bring their own personal stories, and we get to connect over the canvas.

It feels like almost like the closing of a chapter to have this painting actually done, because in so many ways, God has put me back together again. He's put me back together as a stronger, better version of myself than I was before. And I’m ready to move on and and take on new projects. And I feel like painting the sparrow is kind of like putting a capstone on my grief paintings. And

when you wait that long to paint something and then you actually see it,

it's kind of like a dream come true, right? It's like something that you've held in your heart for so long. And then here it is before you on your easel. And it's it's actually bigger and more beautiful than I originally ever imagined.

And I think that’s part of the beauty in the waiting the 12 years to paint it is that I needed to get to

a certain place in my skill level to really have the ability to share the story like I want it to be shared.