In the beginning God created. It all started there. A God who dreamed of beautiful amber sky colors, hues of ocean blues, greens for shrubs and grasses, and millions of twinkling stars spoke them into existence. Creativity was born. Creativity was beautifully brought to life for others to soon experience.
Made in the Master Creator’s image I am. And you are too. As we’re born, God says to His masterpiece, “Be holy like me. Imitate me.” Be creative like me.
But I balk at this masterpiece God created. I don’t like my body type, eye color, nor the talents I’ve been given. I cut down and abuse this beautiful work of art God created — myself. The abuse leads to self-doubt, poor self-image, and feelings that I’m unworthy to be a masterpiece at all.
God continues to love and nudge me to create despite my failings. He wants me to see as He sees — newness and life to be born everywhere. He creates newness out of the old. He also brings the dead back to life. He creates. He renews. He resurrects.
To be like the Master Creator I must create.
This past year I created a sanctuary in my backyard. With little space I nurtured a small piece of heaven to this earth. Scouting through people’s trash piles, I found treasures. Beautiful discarded old fence pickets weathered as perfect white wash. Pallets knotted with marks of wear. How could someone have let go of these beauties? Did they not see what I saw?
The pieces of wood begged to be made new. My mind could see the joy they could to bring to others if they were just brought back to life. If someone would just breathe life back into them. Restored they’d be.
Fence pickets called out to be a table that would gather friends for long evening dinners and chats. Boards wormed their way into my soul stating they were’t done. They longed to be repurposed. They still had use. And soon 5 long 12 foot boards became a beautiful table to bring friends together for laughter, tears, and fellowship.
Worn and rusty nailed pallets were plenty as I spent time learning about them from Kat, my friend the pallet expert. Together we searched trash piles. In the process of discovering beat-up treasures, I saw how they could line my tiniest of yard and hold blooming plants to bring color and joy to this sanctuary that longed to be created. Plants, flowers, herbs could now find a home resting on these jagged boards.
I longed for a place where old could collide with the new for something extraordinary.
It seemed that as my own life seemed to be dying from the inside out, I needed beautiful creations to remind me that resurrections are possible. The old could be made new to flourish. I wanted to be restored. Renewed. Resurrected.
I longed for a repurpose.
I wanted to take old comfortable words and reform them into sentences to create new thoughts to be shared.
I wanted to take ran down beach houses and nurture them with love and paint to bring the old fixer-upper to a new cottage of peace.
I wanted to take a desolate back yard and bring the Garden of Eden to life. I needed to see heaven here on earth as it is in heaven.
It grew apparent, I’d have to take my old routines and put new disciplines behind them to create a new start to a new season.
I longed to create because God creates.
I needed the dead in me to be brought back to a flourishing life through creative measures that would stretch and grow the talents I’d been given.
In the beginning God created.
In the process of being made new I created.
In this new season, will you create? Will you take the dreams, talents, and desires you have and create something new? Oh how I hope so.
There’s an awakening that comes with creating. Because, no one creates something they do not want. And this fresh idea that beats deep in your soul is longing to be birthed. It needs to be spit out in to this world. To be created. To reach others.
It’s time to live like the Master Creator. Birth that dream to life. Create. Make the old new.
In this new season, I will create.
Will you?