Everything shifted on the day my daughter created art for the first time. Well, maybe you can’t call it art, but she learned how to draw on her new etch-a-sketch and my heart about burst with excitement. I thought about her future and all the beautiful things she would draw, paint, write, and express creatively. At the same time, I felt the Holy Spirit whisper, “That’s how I feel when you create.” Tears began to fall as I realized I had let the fear of perhaps never producing something significant stop me from doing something I love. My daughter’s little scribble wasn’t impressive in the least, but to me it was the beginning of her journey into creativity, her birthright as a child of the Creator. This seemingly inconsequential moment became a turning point in my life. It has allowed me to write and make music simply because it makes my heart come alive and brings my Father joy. The following is what I journaled after this unexpected revelation:

I am a creative. I am a mother. I am a writer.

I want to write in color and song.

I want my words to paint pictures of truth.

Hidden beauty will be my canvas, not empty, but full of expectancy. Hope bursting forth from within the pallor, ready and waiting to be revealed. A blank page pregnant with promise and teeming with life awaits the quiver of a timid soul. A moment of courage, a scribble of audacity, that’s all it takes.

The only reason fear has the power to stop creativity is because failure is a possibility. Failure and it’s companions: Negative opinions, shame, loneliness, self-loathing. I have given failure the authority to tell me who I am instead of telling failure what it is.

Beckoned from the depths of my own spirit another Spirit speaks, creating purpose out of pain and meaning out of mourning. Failure is no longer a wrecking ball; it is an open door for a miracle. It is the tearing of a muscle to become even stronger. It is the point at which character is built. It is a shift in the storyline that makes the ending even better. But failure isn’t even a possibility without me first taking a deep breath and doing precisely what I fear. To write, to share, to fill empty spaces with what fills me.

This is my intention and hope: To freely give what I have freely received.

Beauty and joy in abundance. This is our inheritance.

I

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