Writing is like giving away the few loaves and fishes one has, trusting that they will multiply in the giving. – Henri Nouwen, from his Reflections on Theological Education
Writing – perhaps all art forms – dwell within the habitudes of uncertainty and bewilderment. I enter into the act of creating not knowing if I’ll create anything. A doubt underlies the thought: perhaps I’ve drawn my last drawing already, perhaps I have no more words to write.
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I know the doubt is a lie; I feel the urge to create rise within me. It wells to the surface. Writing, drawing, whatever new art form arrests my attention for a time – they are necessary to living. They are the breath to my bones just as my faith is. They animate me. They help me to understand my own mind and heart. They reveal the hidden desires and hopes, both the ones that uplift and break. They at times correct my flawed understanding and lead me to a right way of thinking and acting.
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Writing is an act of trust. I come to this blank page and trust that words will come. I not only trust that there are words to be found but also that the One who created me to create will come. He will give me the necessary words. He will give me an opportunity to laugh in delight as my latest drawing takes shape on the sketchpad. He teaches me that He is the One who multiplies my “loaves and fishes.” My only task is to bring them to Him and ask Him to bless and multiply them.
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Even if He doesn’t appear every time I come to the blank page, I seek Him. I know He will arrive when I least expect it, so I work, and I wait; I wait, and I work. God doesn’t appear according to my schedule. He is no thing to be controlled. He is God, and He is wild. He’s no tame lion. He roars. He also whispers.
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The “loaves and fishes” that appear on the page are not always pretty. They’re dark, edged. These loaves and fishes feed, too. They are the means by which I express my anguish and perhaps comfort or encourage another. They are my way of seeking the God who comforts my heart at its breaking. While it may continue to hurt, I know I am not alone. I write the words and know He is with me, holding me close. He reminds me that my darkness is not dark to Him, that He records each of my tears and aches in His book, that this suffering will produce glory.
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When I come to the page, I come as the little boy who brought his loaves and fishes to Jesus. He opened his hands and gave what he had to the One who could turn them into something more. I do the same. I come, my hands open, saying, “This is all I have, Jesus. Use it, use me for Your glory. Do far more abundantly than anything I could think to ask or dream. I’m Yours.”
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[…] it comes to my writing and art, the only thing I’m responsible for is exercising my gifts. I entrust the outcome of that exercise to the One who gave me those gifts. He doesn’t ask me to […]