Curls of Wonder

I sit to write blog posts, not chapters. The words crumple into a tight ball in my mind and I stretch my fingers across the keyboard to unfurl them. A knot of uncertainty knits itself together in my heart and I reach for the known over the scary. This writing for a blog is familiar. This book-writing? It’s difficult to weave a dream so big into something you can hold in your hands.

Across the lawn, The Len works with tools and wood and I marvel at the way he creates beautiful things from mere ideas. He sketches carefully with pencil and paper, erasing some lines and keeping others. I wonder if he realizes how creative he is in those moments, as his mind puzzles out the shape and form of something only he can see.

Creativity used to be an abstract, fluid thing. It flowed or it didn’t. I used words like muse and inspiration and waited until they came. And I’m not much good at waiting.

I’m learning, ever-so slowly, that creativity isn’t external to us but rather an imprint of the Father. We are created beings, molded and refined in the image of Creator God. Whether we own it or not, creativity is there. Etched into us by the very Hand that made us.

Sometimes it’s easier not to own it. To look at gifts we know we have and think, ‘It’s not enough. Not worth trying...’

And maybe sometimes the word itself just scares us. Maybe we’ve hyped this word up to something only painters and artists and poets can do.

I asked The Len if he considered himself creative and he shrugged, concentrating on his drill press and the swirling vortex of sawdust surrounding his project. Knowing him, I imagine he would say it was simply something he wanted to do, something he enjoyed. He does not share my obsession with words and their meaning, but he knows wood and its grain and the way to carve something wondrous.

And in the end, whatever the final product we imagine, it’s the by-product we never anticipate... that moment when God leans in and whispers, 'Now watch. Look here. Lean in close now.'

And in a moment when you least expect it, He uncurls wonder into our world.

Opens our eyes to see that all things created are His.

You especially.
Wonderful, created, creative you.

So never mind the word. Never mind that unsettled feeling. Just do whatever it is that wells up in you simply because it's in you. Whatever it is... just give it a go. He has all sorts of wonder waiting in the shadow of His wings.

"The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it..." Psalm 24:1