Roaring down the walls of fear

The past 4 months of being home have consisted of a lot. Most of which are my figuring out more of myself. And Jesus. And the beautiful process of finding Jesus then finding more of myself. Along with seeing how big He is and How great His love extends, especially in America 🙂 This blog is a lot of me externally processing, and it is kind of long, so heads up 😉 




A big part of this actually consisted of art, and going on this dive into the heart of the Father. I have never considered myself an ‘artist’ by any means. Never really been able to draw anything above average, never painted anything super cool, it was just never my ‘thing’. I honestly don’t know what has happened…God has done something to me. It’s like He is uncaging something inside of me suppressed by the lies of “This is good, but look at HERS..”. or "Art isn't your thing". That kind of rubbish talk has robbed me. Thank you Jesus for freely giving me back my inheritance after I have squandered it for present-tense, earthly lies that have done nothing but take and left me alone, wanting more. And let me tell ya, I’m taking it back. Little by little, as the the Truth of who He is and who I am come out into the light. And as the promises I have negated and pushed aside for far too long come into the light. 



Woah. That in in itself is cray. Thank you Jesus. Grace, ya’ll.



So in my discovering of art, I have come to realize some things.

1. Creativity.

Creativity is crazy awesome. The beautiful expression of who you are coming alive into something physical. I can create and draw and paint and invent things that NOBODY else can. I have something to release into this world that cannot exist through any other medium, except me. In my suppressing it and believing lies and in letting comparison come in as a thief, I am literally robbing the world of something. Something God has spoken inside of me and only me. That God has put in me specifically because he WANTS the world to have it. I OWE it to the world to be creative. I love that, I love how everything ever created by anyone is completely, 100% unique. Just like the body of Christ! How each of us are completely unique and completely vital. Wahhhhh! I mean, come on. So good.

So creativity- important. Vital to the earth. Your voice is needed, otherwise God wouldn't have put it inside you.

Comparison- poison

DO NOT COMPARE WHAT YOU HAVE TO ANYBODY ELSE.

YOU CANNOT BE WRONG.

SERIOUSLY.





2. The Process.

I have noticed something as I have begun to explore art. Throughout whatever it is that I am doing; drawing, painting, whatevs, is that it is constantly changing. If you took pictures at any given stage of any art piece it would look completely different. And a lot of times, I don’t really like it until it is finished. And that is what you kind of do; you keep adding/taking away/blending/whatever it is that you do until you come to that moment of ‘Ah. No more.’ It’s pretty cool to think about. This process, this act of trying to figure out how to get from beginning to end; from looking at a blank canvas at the beginning to seeing what it is that YOU created at the end. If you don’t like it, you can change it. You can do something about it. I feel like that is what God does with us sometimes. Not that He doesn’t like us or where we are at, but He wants us to get to a point of having whole and complete fellowship with Him. So He will take us new places, put us around new people and new circumstances to get us to that place. We are his masterpiece, and he is continually molding us into being His dream. His soul. His expression. I guess I’m kind of dealing with that right now in all this change and transition happening and thoughts of all kinds of discontentment going every which direction, thinking of that gives me more peace than anything else that has tried to comfort me lately. 

You see, I’m in the process of drawing this picture. I knew what I wanted to draw from the beginning, at least the general idea. But not specifics. It came to starting over/fixing/using up an entire pencil eraser until I finally figured out what I really wanted to do. In the center of this picture is the back of a head of a little girl named Esther, and she was the first thing I drew and the only think I kept throughout all the change that occurred around her. It was kind of cool to see her stay the same. The picture is still about her, even though everything around her changed. It changed in order to form the masterpiece. Spiritual parallels, anyone?





3. The Environment.

Your environment drastically affects your drawings. The way I processed and thought, what part of the drawing/painting I did, along with other things like what color I used, and how inspired I was, was directly affected to what was around me. Were there people? Was there music? What kind of music? Was I listening to a podcast? Inside? Outside? Goes to show that what is around you will affect your inside. It’s like that analogy you hear at church camp with the sponge, you know? Whatever the sponge absorbs is exactly what it will seep out. Just a cool thought.





4. The Masterpiece.

How does God do it? How does he like everything he creates? God knows I don’t end up loving everything I create. Yeah, yeah He’s perfect and all that jazz but it just baffles me. Then I started thinking; it isn’t so much about the final product. (Whaa?) It’s about the creating itself. It’s about releasing what you have, whatever it is. It’s the boldness of doing something nobody has ever done, even if it doesn’t always turn out perfect. It’s being able to step out of the comparison mindset (for yourself or other people) and enjoy doing it because it is yours. The masterpiece is just a result of the boldness of the process it took to get there.





5. Vulnerability.

It does take boldness to do be able to do it. I am most insecure when it comes to what I create. And when I sing. (Are they really that different..?) Actually I wouldn’t call it insecure, but vulnerable. What you create really comes out of you. That’s scary. And the best things come out of deep places. The places that you dare to go deepest are where the greatest creation comes from. It really is all you, so when someone doesn’t like it or if “it isn’t as good as somebody else’s” then it’s almost like they don’t like you. Or that you aren’t as good as somebody else. It takes a really brave person to show off to the world something that they created with their own hands, and inevitably open the floor for criticism. Dang. I don’t know if I could do it. But I also feel like the more you work in those places of vulnerability and dare to do something with it (which again, has to happen out of result of believing that your expression is perfect, because it's yours), the more secure you become in who you are. That’s sweet!

Let's Roman's 8. Realize who you are, step out of lies, and release creation from it's bondage to decay. Realize that you have something to give to the world, and give it without fear of being wrong. It's the act of doing it that changes nations. The act of knowing God has put His expression in you, and abiding in that, that will be the means to claim our inheritance. Know who God is. Know who you are. Release it into the world.

(Much of this was inspired by Kelly Chadwick's Create 30 Challenge, you can read about here: www.kellychadwick.org – it's super awesome and so is she)