Art.

To Create.

Sometimes I will be sitting in my classes in the morning, and I begin to think about creating something. A new meal. A batch of muffins. A decoration for the house. A new "tool" to help organize our crazy life. A new page for Ezekiel's scrapbook. A new entry on my blog. Soon--I find myself overcome by this desire to conceive, formulate, and fashion something new. The ideas bombard my mind, and soon my mind is too exhausted to create anything at all!

I don't consider myself particularly crafty. Sure, I've thrown together my fair share of paintings, scrapbook pages, even sewed some sock owls in my day.

 

However, I find myself easily frustrated by the amount of focused time that these crafty endeavors require. 

I've discovered that my favorite creative outlets are baking and writing. And although these may be classified as hobbies, I do like to consider how they may be used to bless others and glorify God. God is, after all, the One who created within me passions for these things. They may seem trivial, but I thank Him for them, and for the joy they bring me in finding in them a means, or avenue, to create.

Perhaps create is an incorrect word, here. A few weeks ago I was teaching the pre-schoolers at church that only God can create, for "to create" is to make something out of nothing. As God did with the earth, and with us humans. Only He can do that. When I create, I use materials already in existence. I use paper, fabric, sugar, chocolate chips, and language. God used His imagination and wisdom to conjure up and speak into being that which never before was. He said His creation was good. I say it is magnificent! It is good and that nothing of His creation is bad. There is no flaw, there is no impurity. His original creation was completely without blemish. It may be blemished today, as it is tainted with wrong; tainted with sin. But what He created was perfect, complete, and whole.

You know what astounds me? What leaves me perplexed? God created so much simply for our enjoyment! He simply wants us to take joy in His imagination, His creativity, and His power, displayed so evidently through His creation! 

He is so evident through His creation!

" For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."  

Romans 1:20

Thanksgiving is:

My favorite day of the year. This year I am overwhelmed. Not that in prior years I did not have reason to be overwhelmed; most certainly I did. Maybe it's just that this year I've taken time to be overwhelmed. Yesterday morning as Zeke was fast asleep in the next room, I sat down to my journal and cup of coffee. I took the opportunity to embrace some silence. Silence is unique in that it offers both rest, and challenge. Rest from noise, from distraction. Challenge to consider what is always present but drowned out by the frenzy of life. I sat in the tiny kitchen in the house my parents rented for all of us for Thanksgiving vacation. I stared out at the woods in back, and listened to nothing but the absence of noise. I began to think upon all that I have to be grateful for. I cannot begin to fathom all that the Lord has done for me, and all that He has given me.


Thanksgiving is: The giving of thanks. The giving of thanks because I have received so abundantly, so richly,so completely all that I need, and that which I desire.

Thanksgiving is:

My family

  This bundle of joy, love, laughter, smiles, that face which makes me melt, a gift of grace, a miracle.

Silliness

 

Great Food

 My family, and our outrageous traditions

Beauty. The beauty found outside. God's creation, so present, so abundant, so pervasive.

Christ died for me. He died to save me. To save my husband. To save my son. To save all of those I love. To save every individual in this world. Because His love is GREAT! We have so much to be thankful for, and I am overwhelmed just to begin to think about it.