I stumbled across a post I shared four years ago from a favorite blog and it made me smile all over again. It happens to be written by my sister and this post happens to be about my kids, but still. It’s seriously one of my favorite blogs. She’s since been on long hiatus from writing for lots of good reasons including but not limited to her own children and a couple of intercontinental moves.
I talk to her all the time. But her words from four years ago (and collectively four children ago) still connect us.
This morning, I got this post in my inbox from a newer internet friend. And she said exactly what I think. I mean, I’m not in a current battle with WordPress, but otherwise it’s all there. “There’s too much life lately, and not enough me” she writes.
Suddenly I feel a lot less lonely, because someone TOTALLY GETS ME.
My point is totally NOT to hassle my sister into writing right now.
It’s just…
We need your art.
I’m here sharing whatever floats into my brain to write about. Sometimes it’s a love story, or a birth story, or a story about my kids that taught me something. Sometimes it’s a note to remind you (me) of what’s important. Sometimes I talk about my miscarriage and sometimes I just talk about Jesus. I don’t think my life and my stories are so fascinating to everyone, but they’re all I have. I find gifts and grace there and I want to share that with you, whether you’re encouraged or challenged or just feel little less alone.
But I don’t have your stories.
Nobody else has your stories. Nobody else has your eyes heart or your gifts. Is writing your thing? I don’t have any idea. If it is, then share it as you have time and words. I know everyone and their mother has a blog right now. Please don’t let the volume of words that are out there be the thing that keeps you silent. None of them has YOUR words.
Is it photography? Baking? Poetry? Marketing? Dance? Soccer? Do you take pleasure in a well-organized or decorated space? Are you gifted teaching children? Do you like to build or remodel things? Make music? Engage people? Garden? Please do it. At least some.
Because not only do we need your art, we need YOU.
I speak only from my life, but when I’m doing the things I was made for, I’m being my best, most authentic self. I’m sitting here at my dining room table in an uncharacteristically quiet house typing on my new-to-me laptop. I’m writing. But more importantly, I’m coming alive. I’m morphing into a version of me that’s truer to who God’s made me to be. It’s good for me, it’s good for my husband, my kids, and basically anyone I interact with, whether or not they ever read anything I write.
God created man in his own image… (Gen 1:27)
Not to build a whole philosophy out of a single phrase of a single verse, but can I just point out that if God created, then He’s creative? And if He created us in His image, then creativity is probably part of His image on us?
I know somebody’s cringing at the word “creative.” I get it. For years, I’d have identified myself as “not creative.” My husband would have labeled himself the same way . But I’m finding more and more that “creative” fits us both in very different ways. It has so many expressions that I really believe it’s part of everyone’s makeup. In Emily Freeman’s book A Million Little Ways, she addresses this concept at length… Creativity, once we stop defining it so narrowly, is human thing. If you don’t like “creative” as a label, how about just doing something that you enjoy, that makes you come alive, and do it. Go for a run. Or a hike. Bust out the watercolors or the coloring book. Whatever.
Your creativity blesses us. Your you-ness blesses us. Could you do me a favor and look for some small way, private or public, that you reflect His creativity and do that?
We need you.
This post is part of the write31days challenge… I’m trying to post every day in October. The rest of the posts can be found here.
grace enough 