The Artist

The Artist never wearies

(S)he labors night and day.

(S)he paints my life with beauty,

(Her) glories to display

(S)he plays sweet notes of purpose

Upon my yielded heart,

And thus (S)he gently fashions

My life into (her) art

My life into (her) art

-The Artist, Craig Courtney

There are moments when I am glad that God is a creative God. A captivating sunset, the multi-colored beauty of dying leaves in fall, a breathtaking symphony or the tiny clasped hands of a newborn baby. These are the moments that I rejoice in God’s creativity.

But I also remember that some of God’s most creative moments are in the midst of chaos. So as it was in Genesis, so it is with our lives. I wish God were the most creative with perfection, but alas that just simply isn’t how God works. God seems to choose our brokenness, our quirks, our messiness, to mold our lives into stories that are worth living. And this is liberating and it is terrifying. It is liberating because the grace of God frees to us live and create together with God and it is terrifying because you cannot be creative until you take a chance. You cannot be timid and creative at the same time. You just can’t. You must be brave. You must dare to open yourself to love, to dream, to fight and even to fail. And we will fail. And when we walk away broken and bruised, the voices will start to sing their song- “You were stupid to have tried. You knew this was going to happen.” And we can choose to listen to the voices and solemnly put our paintbrushes away before the next time we are asked to be creative, or we can choose to believe that the beauty in creativity is that it has no preset result. There is no way that it has to or should turn out. The beauty of creativity is in the process of creating itself; in the being brave enough to put your pen to paper. That’s where the grace of God is waiting for us to play. I would even venture to say that God would prefer a flawed, bruised and broken piece of artwork created in the heartache and adventures of life than a blank sheet of paper, however crisp and clean.

So today I choose to create, in the midst of my laughter, my tears, all that is broken and all that is beautiful about my life. And by the grace of God I am not alone for I dare to say there is nothing God enjoys more than the jumping into the mess of our lives to create the most boldly beautiful, exhilarating, painful, abundant story that we are willing to live. May my life continually be transformed into Her art….