Creating

I don't consider myself artsy or creative. But I love art... I love artists.... I have always secretly desired to paint, craft, sculpt, photograph, and draw like they can. I like their sense of style, I like the way they look at even the most plain and everyday things and bring them to life in a beautiful, fascinating way.

I've always just assumed I was incapable of creating because I couldn't do it as well as others... my people's shoulders were uneven, my horses looked like pregnant dogs, and my still life squashes were always lopsided. 

But then... someone comes along and tells me I can. That if I just give it a try, and put aside my fear of failure.... it'll be ok. Maybe it won't be the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or the Mona Lisa.... but that's ok. Just try.

The joy and the freedom of watercoloring in my dorm room. Oil pastels. Collages. Snips of paper made into something new. Decorating a bulletin board in colorful cloth to bring it to life and give it character. Trees in different seasons. Scrapbooks. Bracelets. Sketches of random things in my lit notebook. And a bowl... formed, shaped by my own hands... 

And the quiet rejoicing when someone steps in my room and asks who the artist is. NOT ME. Surely not. But my little, weird creations have drawn someone's fancy. And that is what art is, after all... expression. And my little strange expressions are transferred to others. 

I have had to write a bunch of unit plans, lesson plans, and learning activities this past week. Educational resources and activities litter the desktop on my computer... and my dreams. But suddenly I'm realizing that there are ways to be creative that go beyond just art. And so I create and draft new learning activities for students I have yet to even meet. For eighth grade history students, for a class of fidgety third graders... 

Creating is hard work. It drains me... but oddly energizes me too... the thrill of coming up with new ways to teach things,  new ways to look at things gives me energy to get up at 7:30 and keep looking, researching, and developing ideas. But when I come to my final product, I am proud of it. It's mine. It's hours and hours of thought, careful work, planning, and implementation.... and I have loved it, worked on it, gotten frustrated with it, but created it in the end. Success.

As I was in the midst of this creation.... I came across this quote: 

"The whole difference between construction and creation is exactly this: that a thing constructed can only be loved after it is constructed, but a thing created is loved before it exists."
- G.K. Chesterton

And I realized.... I am created. I have been loved before my very existence. I have been loved, but I am a work in progress. Sometimes I'm rather frustrating to work with. But in the end... I will turn out the way the master Creator wants me. And I will be loved. I will be cherished.