I crawled out of bed early this morning. Not by choice, of course. My covers were warm, and after spending three nights on a rickety pull out couch in a hotel, I wanted to stay nestled on my cottony mattress forever.
Forever and ever.
But the seven year old had nightmares, and just as I drifted back to sleep the baby woke up demanding food, and it became apparent that more sleep was a luxury I would not be afforded.
So I made my way to the coffee pot, and now I sit here in front of my computer. It’s so quiet, and it’s still dark outside. It feels like the entire world is still. As much as I wanted a couple more hours of sleep, I must confess – this is my happy place.
This is the place where the Lord meets me – where He whispers peace in my always swirling heart.
This is the place when words wash over me, and sometimes they even flow out of me.
This is the place where I chase my goals – where I chip away at a dream just a little bit more.
There are a lot of stories out there of people who find success almost by accident. They were blogging for fun, or to get through a difficult time, and they were noticed and suddenly there was a book deal that they never asked for!
It seems like my Facebook feed has been filled with such stories lately, and they’re good stories. I like to read them. And yet…
There’s a part of me that wonders if maybe I’ve just wanted this too much. Maybe if I just quit wanting it so bad, then the publishing contracts would roll in. Because aren’t accidental success stories so fun to read?
“I didn’t want this. I wasn’t looking for it or pursuing it!” People say these things and I smile because I’m excited for them. But also, my heart cringes a little because I do want this. It’s why I’m working so hard.
This is why the quiet spaces are so important, because it’s here in the quiet when I’m reminded that the toil is a gift, and the wanting is okay.
“He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to rejoice and to do good in one’s lifetime; moreover, that every man who eats and drinks sees good in all his labor—it is the gift of God.” Ecclesiastes 3:11-13
There is good to be found in the discipline of rising early to toil away at your goals and dreams. In the quiet dark, while the house is still, your hands move and your heart sings because this is your time. This is the gift.
Friends, the message is simply this: The time spent working and laboring, creeping your way toward a goal, is a good thing. You do not labor in vain, and the difficulty is a gift.
It’s okay to dream, and it’s okay to chase those dreams. Your story isn’t diminished by years of toil. Though it sounds romantic and poetic to somehow accidentally stumble into success, the truth is there is so much beauty in the toil.
Are you working toward a goal? Do you feel like you’re laboring in vain? I assure you, you’re not. It’s okay to want to see the fruition of your hard work. It’s okay to chase after your dream, whatever that may look like for you. It’s okay to want it.
If you’re just joining this conversation, you may want to read Part I first, then move to Part II for a little context as to how we got to this conclusion.
I stood at the edge of the sidewalk and held my camera to my eye. Through the lens, I adjusted the settings and the focus until I had framed the shot exactly as I wanted, then I pushed the button and in a second I captured a moment in time. It wasn’t perfect, because I am, sadly, not a stellar photographer. But it was hard to mess up this shot.
It was September, 2010, and Lee and I were in Hallstatt, Austria celebrating our ten year anniversary. Hallstatt may well be the most beautiful place on earth, and because the landscape possessed such serene perfection it was difficult to take a bad picture there. I stepped back and inhaled deeply, the crisp September morning begging to be taken in fully and completely.
After a few minutes of simply standing and letting the moment fill us, Lee and I turned to walk back to the center of town, and as we did so we passed a man and his wife sitting on a bench just a few feet from where I’d taken my photo. The man held in his hands a sketch book and a pencil, and I stopped and looked over his shoulder. Lee and I both drew in a deep breath when we saw what he’d drawn.
It was the scene before us, the very same scene I had captured with my camera. This man, however, had captured it with his pencil, and the result of his drawing was magical. The sketch seemed almost alive. Though devoid of the color that made up the morning, the details were so intricate, so deftly drawn by an artist’s hand, that it seemed as though the ripples in the water moved on the page.
That which I captured on my camera revealed the art of creation. The drawing on that man’s sketch pad revealed the art of the created.
I ended my last post on this topic with this question, and so here is where I will pick it up:
If all of creation reveals the Creator, then creativity (as defined by the act of creating) will always begin with the potential to honor God.
Do you believe this? Do you see the both the potential for freedom, and the danger, in such a statement?
As sinful man, our first and natural instinct is always to glorify and exalt ourselves. It began all the way back in the Garden of Eden when Eve was so easily convinced that she could become as God if only she’d eat the fruit. The temptation to be as God is impossible for man to ignore. It is ingrained into our very being.
And so the art that we create, while it begins with the potential to honor God, also begins with the potential to exalt us. This is the danger for the artist. We are prone to bastardize the created things.
We see this in so many different ways. From books to movies, music to dance. From photography to graphic design, and painting to home decorating. Every one of these gifts can point people toward God, or away from Him.
It’s up to us to embrace our art as a gift, and to use it not to our own glory. If we are creating, and our creative gifts do not go against God, then our art is a visual representation of Him.
This means, however, that there is a line that can be crossed when art no longer reveals the Creator, but rather taints His creation. Pornography, exotic dancing, songs and books and paintings that glorify the darkness of this world, all of these are ways that we, the created, have distorted the beauty of God and all His created things.
We are all prone to wander.
Like the man with the sketch book, though, we also all have the ability to see and understand when something created has revealed a picture of the Creator. The difference between art that blatantly captures God, and that which more subtly reveals Him is like the difference between my simple photograph and that man’s stunning sketch. One captured the color, the other captured the nuances.
Dear creative friends, everything you create begins with the potential to honor God. Embrace that freedom. Accept it as a gift, and use your art to paint a picture of the Creator and of all His created things. Do not devalue the power of your creative art. What you do matters, and it has the potential to have gospel impact.
The auditorium was packed, hundreds of literary hopefuls, avid readers, admiring law students, and simple fans all squeezed in together to hear one of the most respected and prolific writers of our time tell his story.
It was 2000, my senior year at Baylor University, and my eyes gleamed with all the hopes and potential of publication. So when I heard that John Grisham would be coming to speak on campus, I jumped at the opportunity to hear him. Lee and I were engaged at the time, so we went together and, randomly, recording artist Chris Rice was with us as well.
I can’t remember why he was there. I just know that he was, and really it fits because every bit of my history is peppered with random.
I loved listening to John Grisham tell his story. It took him three years to write A Time to Kill, and two years to secure an agent. The novel was picked up by a small publishing house who ordered only 5,000 copies printed. Grisham bought 1,000 of those and sold them himself.
Meager beginnings from a man who just had stories to tell.
At the end of his talk, Grisham opened the floor for a Q & A, and this started off nicely with students asking smart, respectful questions. Then one girl stood up and approached the mic.
“Mr. Grisham,” she said, “Thank you for speaking with us today. I noticed you spoke of your faith, and yet I can’t help but wonder why, if you believe yourself to be a Christian, you aren’t writing Christian books that are more God-honoring.”
And the entire auditorium groaned.
Grisham paused and looked closely at the girl, an amused smile tilting his mouth upward. He cleared his throat and leaned forward just a little before speaking. “Well,” he said. “The reason is simple. I am a Christian who is a writer. I’m not a Christian writer.” Then he straightened up, and the audience erupted in applause.
For the creative Christian artist there is a very real struggle with knowing how art and faith blend. For some, art and faith are obviously intertwined – you cannot have one without the other – and their creative genius spills forth in a visual gospel message.
But what about the Christian artist whose art doesn’t give a blatant visual representation of Christ in every stroke of the paintbrush, completed manuscript, or song penned beneath the candlelight?
Is there a place for creative Christians who aren’t producing overtly Christian work? Can art reflect faith without openly proclaiming Christ?
When you consider that God Himself was the Ultimate creative, the first and the last, the Creator of beauty, of color and smell and taste and sound, the originator of art, and the heavenly conductor of the celestial rhythms that beat out all of this life, it’s not so hard to see creativity as an extension of Him.
[Art] is useful because God is thereby honoured when it is seen that he hath bestowed such genius upon one of his creatures in whom is such art. All men will be gracious unto thee by reason of thine art.
Albrecht Dürer
For anyone who works from the creative realm, whether they be the obvious arts such as writing, making music, painting or sculpting, to the more obscure and modern arts such as decorating, photography, producing videos, cooking, or designing, it must be noted that they operate as an extension of God Himself.
The creative genius made in the likeness of the Creator.
As the world progressed, however, the arts began to change, and it seems that Christians lost their sense of just how to portray faith through the medium of creativity. Christian art became a means of proselytizing. It became less about revealing God and His goodness, and more about saving souls. The art was dumbed down in order to send a message, and in this dumbing down the created actually veiled the Creator.
So my question for you, readers, is this: Can great art still reveal the mystery of God’s goodness without being overtly Christian? Can a writer be a Christian without writing a Christian book? Can a painter still reveal God’s glory and goodness without painting Calvary? Can a musician still edify the gospel without singing about God? Can art and faith exist parallel to one another and still bring glory to the Creator, or should they intersect?
So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31
Personally, I believe that art and faith are both separate and intertwined. Like John Grisham, I believe an artist can be a Christian without being a Christian artist, and can still unveil God’s glory as the Creator. But…
There’s more we could say on this topic.
I’d like to discuss this further in another blog post, but for now I open the comment section to you. What are your thoughts on the Christian artist vs. the Christian who makes art?
Do you remember being in awe of nature as a child? Did you ever sit beneathe a black-blue sky dotted with a milliion stars and gasp at the wonder of it all? Did you marvel at a sunset or watch the clouds float by in an array of shapes.
An alligator! An elephant! A one-legged dog!
I remember specifically being around nine or ten years old and we had gone on a camping trip to some Jellystone Park in somewhere Wisconsin. While my parents worked hard to crank open the pop up camper, my brother and I romped in the wooded fields around us as the sun sank lower beyond the trees. And then we both stopped and gasped.
The glow of the moon lifted above the treeline before the moon itself appeared. It was huge and orange and seemed to hover just above the ground, willing us to reach out and touch. I wanted to step forward and cross the expanse of sky to enter the golden, shimmery world that seemed to be just steps away.
As a roaring fire cackled and we prepared to bunk down for the night, I stole continual glances at the moon, which continued to rise up above the Earth, the orange hue fading and morphing into a brilliant white. A diamond in the sky.
I remember the magic of that moment, and it’s not the only time the moon’s nearness has stopped me in my tracks. I love those nights when the moon hovers just above the earth and gives us a closer glimpse of the light that God placed in the night sky.
This month has been a hard one. I’ve felt so small and insignificant, so very far away from all of life. I haven’t even had time to stop and observe the moon, to see if she hovered nearby. There haven’t been moments to pause, to try to grasp the weight of everything happening around me.
Tomorrow I am putting “K” on a plane. I will tell her goodbye, then make my way home from Atlanta where I had to drop her off. For seven hours I’ll be alone in the car. Will that be the time to try and take in this whirlwind of a month – this time when everything changed permanently?
Maybe. I’ll try. But mostly I feel numb right now, so there is a part of me that wants to just put on the ’90’s station and sing it out. A little Mariah Carey, Allan’s Morisette, Boyz II Men, and Goo Goo Dolls could be just what the doctor ordered. And yet…
I know at some point I’m going to have to really dig into where I’ve been this month. It’s been a doozy, and as I continue to feel the sadness, I also feel joy and excitement. I’m looking forward to this year with great expectation, despite the fact that it begins with great disappointment.
So tomorrow I will drive through the day, and as I roll into town, the moon should be ascending to her perch in the sky. And I’ll be looking for her, reminding myself that as the world continues to spin and another day comes to a close, there are so many things for which to be thankful.
I’ll remember, and I’ll feel the sadness and the joy, and I’ll let both emotions find a place inside my heart.
And maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ll get to touch the moon.
Several weeks ago, Discovery Channel heavily touted an upcoming special in which a man named Paul Rosolie was going to allow himself to be eaten alive by an anaconda in order to raise awareness to the plight of the monster snake, whose habitat is being destroyed by deforestation.
When I read of Rosalie’s plan, I had several questions come to mind. The first was the very obvious, Why again? It was a question without a good answer (because people are stupid was the best I could come up with), so I quickly moved on to question number two:
I wonder how it would feel to be squeezed into the belly of an anaconda.
You know, besides completely and utterly terrifying…
As the events of the last few days have unfolded, I’m beginning to understand what that type of squeeze feels like. It’s almost crushing.
We got the call we didn’t want to get today. “His breathing is labored. They’ve called in hospice. You need to get home.”
Tomorrow morning, my husband will board an airplane and he will go home to say goodbye to his dad. We knew this day was coming – we didn’t think it would come so fast.
How do you say goodbye to the man who has been the rock of the family? The man who stands in the driveway and waits for you when he knows you’re almost there every time you come to town? The man whose dry sense of humor is what makes holidays and summer visits so very much fun?
The squeeze hurts. It’s tight, and you feel like you can’t breathe. But you must – you must keep breathing because you are still here…living.
I will remain at home with the kids. There isn’t any reason for all of us to go up just yet. We said our goodbyes over Christmas, and they were sweet goodbyes. They weren’t sad, but rather joyful and peaceful. I knew it would be the last time I saw my second father, and I also knew it was going to be okay.
But I still don’t like it.
“K” is with us for another week and a half,and the squeeze gets tighter still. It’s been different this year in ways we didn’t quite predict. But tonight she and I sat beneath the stars and enjoyed the balmy Florida winter air. She drank her coffee and I drank my tea, and we just talked. We shared life in broken, simple Russian sentences.
This morning when I woke up, I prayed that the Lord would help me to truly and deeply love her. I didn’t want to just say it – I wanted to feel it, and tonight I did. As she shared more of her story with me, I felt a surge of love flood through me. It wasn’t emotional, but it was very poignant and real.
As I looked at her, I felt the same wave of love that I feel when I look at any of my children.
I don’t know how the next week and a half will play out for us. When I think through the potentials and the possibilities, I feel squeezed so tight I can hardly breathe. There’s a grieving family 16 hours away who I long to be near, and there are the children in the rooms down the hall who need me here.
I’m being swallowed.
As I’ve prayed over our current circumstances, I’ve asked that the Lord would give me the strength and the grace to walk this path well. He is answering that prayer, and of course He would.
I only feel the tightening at night when the sun goes down and the house gets still, and I run through the logistics of every decision that needs to be made, of the heartache and loss that the young woman down the hall has already experienced, of the sting that my children will feel as they experience death for the first time, and I have to slow down, relax, and take deep breaths.
Tonight Tia asked me if her Papa was going to die soon and I told her yes.
“So he’s going to get to see Jesus in a few days?” she asked.
I nodded, because sometimes speaking hurts.
“He’s lucky,” she said. “He won’t have to ever be sick again, and he will get to be with God.”
The squeeze hurts, and it isn’t comfortable. I’d rather not be in this place. But the squeeze is also good. It breaks us down and folds us into the lap of a child with innocent, unwavering faith.
