Tomorrow Maria comes to continue work on her first ever mosaic. She saw some of my mosaics and wanted to learn how to make them and I said come on over! I get to work on my own mosaic project while she is working on hers. I’m looking forward to that creative time making a mosaic. Though there is always a struggle in the creative process, making the mosaic satisfies a deep need in me to express myself artistically.[1]
Though I’ve downplayed my own creativity, I find ideas rising to the surface, breaking through to my conscious mind like air bubbles breaking the surface of a pond. I have ideas for making a mosaic house number plaque or a mosaic headboard, but then I don’t follow through on those ideas because, well, you know, I have to do this other thing I promised, or I’m too busy because of this responsibility, or the house needs cleaning (when does it not?). Ordinary life gets in the way.
Just as with writing, though, I have to make time to create mosaics.
I read a blog post by another Christian woman writer who, for years didn’t answer her inner desire to write, didn’t even realize it was there because it was buried beneath all the layers of the “I have to do” of her life (boy, can I relate). They were good things, but things that pushed aside her inner “voice,” as she put it. I made a copy of this one paragraph from her post to tape onto my desk so I will see it every time I sit here:
“We’ve been made creative beings, to help bring order out of chaos. When I give myself the time and space to create, even in little slivers of time stolen from sleep or “productivity,” I’m fueled for the ordinary. Then, all of (a) sudden, the ordinary has a sheen around the edges. The ordinary becomes part of a narrative of creativity.”[2]
Her words resonate within me! It took me a long time to learn and accept that I am an artist at heart, that I am creative and that I have a need to express that creativity visually. That was an important discovery.
And so it is for each of us; it is part of learning the way God made us as individuals. We are creative beings, made in God’s image, each capable of manifesting God’s creativity in different ways.
I’m not talking about spiritual gifts here. If God had chosen to never give gifts of his Spirit to Jesus’ followers, we’d still have within us the creativity given us by God because he made us in his image. He is the creative, Creator God.
It reminds me of the quote I use in my email salutation: “To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.”[3] I think he is saying the same thing as I’m trying to say. We need to express the creativity God gave us as his human creation. We have the capacity to bring glory to God through our creative expressions, especially when we give ourselves back to God to live for his purposes and glory. [4]
Have you made the discovery of the creative spirit God put into you, and the ways you can express that creativity, bringing it out as a gift to others and to God?
[1] My mosaics website: http://www.expressionsofthelight.com/
[2] By Ashley Hales, from “Don’t Give Your Voice Away,” posted on Redbud Writers Guild http://www.redbudwritersguild.com/dont-give-your-voice-away/
[3] David Whyte, “What to Remember When Waking”
[4] “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. 2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2, (ESV) The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. https://www.biblegateway.com/