Created to Create

Living Art

I never considered myself an artist or even a crafter before, but this first week of summer break has changed that.  I’ve indulged in several creative pursuits with the extra time I have while not homeschooling and I’ve discovered something. There has been an artist trapped in the dark corners of my brain suffocating over the last year or more of homeschooling, pregnancy, nursing, SURVIVING.  She might have died off altogether if I hadn’t had the creative aspects of homeschooling to supply some oxygen from time to time. Now that she has had more time and freedom to get out and breath deep, satisfying breaths I don’t think I’ll ever be able to stuff her away again as completely as I have in recent years.

And yet… I struggle with this feeling of “wasting” my time and money to do “frivolous” things.  Why knit a baby blanket when I could buy one for cheaper than I can buy the yarn to make one?  I really shouldn’t use up the color ink in our printer for anything other than homeschool materials, and even then only if it’s necessary, because… because isn’t anything else wasteful?  Those inexpensive beads and wire I was interested in?  They should definitely only come out of my birthday money.  And even the completely free endeavor of putting my vague thoughts and impressions into words – that is a waste of time, if not money. Even making our house a nice place to dwell leaves me feeling guilty. At least cooking gives me a creative outlet that seems to have some actual value – we have to eat!

But when I think of truly great works of art - the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, Les Miserables, Moonlight Sonata – or even “lesser” displays of beauty like a well-tended garden, when I think of these things I recoil at the thought of anything being wasted in the pursuit of such glory. These things draw my soul to worship! They magnify THE Creator so obviously they might as well vocally shout His praises to all who enjoy them. 

But what about my crocheting? Jewelry making? Bible verse and hymn lyric printables? What about me making my bed in the morning (um, sometimes) and choosing a pretty paint color for the bedroom or arranging furniture for the best balance and flow in the room? These are no masterpieces to draw any other living soul to worship. And yet…

And yet, they minister to my soul. They release a song from my heart.  If I spend all of life feeling guilty for these creative pursuits then I don’t worship through them. Instead I cling to them like the forbidden fruit, and set them up as idols in my heart. So my desire is to learn to see this impulse to create as one of the avenues through which we bring God glory and then to walk in the freedom of enjoying HIM through it all. To offer up my piano practice, crocheted hat, and wall color choice as a song of praise to the Creator in whose image I am made. And to trust that He receives my simple offerings as happily as I accepted the sweet, handcrafted gifts of my children. 

After all, it would come to this: that he had dug very deep and found the place where a man had drawn the picture of a reindeer. But he would dig a good deal deeper before he found a place where a reindeer had drawn a picture of a man. That sounds like a truism, but in this connection it is really a very tremendous truth… The creature was truly different from all other creatures, because he was creator as well as creature.

-G.K. Chesterton, The Everlasting Man