Creativity

Some of you may know that I am an artist. I am also a registered nurse. If there were one word to describe me, I think Artist is the word. My creativity carries over into every arena of my life, even nursing.

Until recently, I thought that my artistic abilities were just a bonus, it allowed me to express myself and make the world a more beautiful place. Artists make the world more beautiful visually, just like musicians make the world more beautiful with sound. And if you didn't have any of those beautifying gifts, then your gift was to enjoy them :)

And a lot of artists are tormented by their pasts. A very high percentage of creative people come from dysfunctional backgrounds. Maybe creativity is a release from the pains of the past. I think some of my dysfunctional past is exposed in my art. It also provides a release when things aren't going so well in my life. It's like therapy. When I bottled it up (my art) and I don't spend time creating, I get depressed.

In the past, when I painted, I didn't have purpose. Well, my purpose was to paint a painting of something. And it got boring sometimes. Like should I paint a flower or a frog? Or a house or a landscape, or an abstract? Oils, acrylic, watercolor? Sometimes just thinking about what to paint sucked the creativity out of the whole project. And that too is depressing.

The kind of artist that paints like I used to paint feels empty. I've had this nagging feeling for a while that there had to be more to this gift that God gave me. So much more......

As I have spent a lot of time lately really contemplating my gifts, I've come to this conclusion...

God gave me my gift so I could represent him in this world. When I paint now, I become part of the painting. I am part of the movement of the brush, the colors on the canvas, the breath of God is in my painting. God is speaking through my art.

How is God speaking through you??