I’ve always had a creative mind. As a child I loved to use my imagination. I loved playing outside, building forts and making playhouses. Imagining how things could be, instead of how they were. Playing as if everything was how it was in my imagination. I loved drawing and painting. I loved playing with dolls, dress-up clothes, and my doll house. I loved coming up with stories for everything I was playing with. Starting in high school sewing and writing became my creative outlets. Now sewing is firmly my art form.
I love the process of sewing. Coming up with an idea tweaking it until it’s just right in my mind, figuring out how to make that idea become a reality, and finally doing so. I love making each project different, rather than repeating the same thing over and over. The project is quicker, but lacking in fulfillment for me if I just repeat a project I’ve already done, if, say, I make two or three identical dresses. (Thus, when I do make multiples of the same thing I do them assembly line style, get ‘em all done at once.) It’s so much fun to come up with an idea that is different, if only slightly, than anything I’ve done before, and see it through to completion.
Now, I would love it if I could draw or paint, or take amazing pictures, and have these things turn out just the way I want them too, the way my sewing projects do. However, I don’t have those talents. I must confess that there have been plenty of times I have been jealous of those who do have those talents. I’ve thought less of myself for not being able to do something as well as someone else could. I’ve focused on what I’m unable to do, my short comings, rather than the things I’m strong in. I’ve wished God made me more like someone else, rather than realizing God created me exactly the way he wanted to.
God has the most creative mind there is. He came up with the idea for the world and He spoke it into existence, and he didn’t make it uniform. He made each corner of the world different, and beautiful. As I sat at a window in a church balcony here in Cote d’Iviore, I admired the landscape. There are palm trees, big, beautiful flowers, bamboo, and plants and trees growing so many different kinds of amazingly delicious fruits. It’s beautiful, and so very different from home. But does the beauty here make my home any less beautiful? No. The middle of Missouri, with it’s hills, forests, plains, bluffs, creeks, rivers, lakes, seasonal trees and flowers, and, for that matter, four different seasons, is just as beautiful. Different, but equally beautiful, made by the same hand. God is creative, he doesn’t make the same thing over and over.
Psalm 104 talks about all the different places and things God made in the Earth. As I was reading this Psalm, sitting up in that church balcony, the second half of verse 13 really grabbed my attention. It reads;
“The earth is satisfied with the fruit of His works”
~Psalms 104:13 (NASB)
If the earth is satisfied with how God made it, how can I not be satisfied with how God made me? Why, how, can I compare myself to others? My talents to someone else’s talents. My body to someone else’s body. My accomplishments to someone else’s accomplishments. We are all made by the same God. The God who created the world. A God who is creative, so he did not make us all the same. No, he created us each individually, one of a kind. Creating us was a process, and he enjoyed every step of it. He created us just how he wanted us to be. God didn’t make us assembly line style.
“For you formed my inward parts; You wove me in my mother’s womb.
I give thanks to you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Wonderful are Your works,
and my soul knows it very well.”
~Psalms 139:13&14 (NASB)
On this earth, as we seek him, he is growing us into who he wants us to be. He is never finished with us. He never forgets his creations. Over all, God has the same desire for each and every one of us. He wants us to recognize him as our Lord and Savior. However, the path he has for each of us, the life journey he is taking us on is as unique as we each are. God does not use the same exact mold or 5 step plan for each of us. No, He’s creative. He goes through the entire creative process for each of us. He comes up with an idea for each of us, for who we are and will be, then he turns that idea into reality.
God is the father of creativity.
