I’ve been revisiting a favorite book of mine recently: A Million Little Ways by Emily P. Freeman. I can’t say enough how this book speaks to me as an artist and a mother. As a child of God.
Are you holding back, are you not sharing yourself with those around you, because you feel like you are still learning yourself? Do you have an idea of where "you need to be", before you open yourself to others.
I am here to remind you. To remind myself. That we are all works in progress. We are all on a path of learning. Through our inadequacies, through our triumphs, through our journeys, we can share, we can inspire, and we can be instruments for Christ to use us in ways we can’t even imagine. Artists are not just painters or photographers. Writers and singers. No, as Emily shares in her book, we make art with our lives. When we share ourselves, when we give of ourselves in the ways God has gifted us, we create art. These words from Emily stood out to me in such a profound way the past few days that I wanted to share.
“ The art I believe I was born to make lingers even in the midst of my inadequacy.
Just because you can’t full live your life the way you long to live it doesn’t mean you don’t fully believe it’s possible with all your heart. And it doesn’t mean you are forbidden to share what you’re learning unless you are living it perfectly.
Christ is in you and wants to come out through you in a million little ways-through your strength and also your weakness, your abilities and also your lack.
I call it art, someone else calls it rubbish.
So what?
Call it what you will. God calls us his poem. And the job of the poem is to inspire. To sing. To express the full spectrum of the human experience—both the bright hope that comes with victory and the profound loss that accompanies defeat.
We must make art, even in our weakness. If we don’t we are denying ourselves ourselves. In turn, we will deny everyone else ourselves as well. “
