I’ve known for many years that I love to create. There has always been a strong force of creativity within my soul. The whole left brain or right brain debate- It’s not a really accurate debate, but if it was, I would be almost totally right brained.
Creating something is life-giving, freeing, exhilarating. Creativity makes me feel alive and not like I just exist. It feeds something inside of me that craves expression. There have been multiple medical studies over the years about just how important it is to create and how it can cause healing and help us in other ways.
Music
As a young child, I discovered music and I learned how to use it to express myself, be it through various instruments, my voice, or arranging music.
Music can salve the wounds of my soul. It gives me courage, which is funny because a lot of people would think that getting in front of an audience and performing would be the opposite. Sitting behind a piano, I can bare my soul, and somehow through the amazing power of music, it gets shared with everyone without making my soul feel naked or rejected.
Writing
I did a lot of writing as a child and into my teens. It was really just a natural progression from my deep and abiding love of books. Why wouldn’t I want to create books when I loved the end result so much? I never could figure out how to build stories and make conversation work, although they sometimes exist in my head. Most of my writing ended up in the form of letters or journaling over the years. I had a lot of pen pals, Grandparents and friends received a lot of letters.
Fiber Arts
In my teenage years and then as an adult I discovered fiber arts. I learned to spin wool into yarn, weave baskets, and even made my own wedding dress. This was probably where I used the most creativity until recently.
For several years, I made and sold children’s clothes.
Serving Others
There is another part of me though that I didn’t discover until recent years. I have an innate need to serve others. Sometimes I forget to say “No, I can’t do that right now,” for my sanity and over schedule myself. But I have a visceral need to help others. By doing so I fill my bucket and I feel better able to handle the day to day craziness that my days inevitably bring.
For the past several years I have spent a lot of time, heart and energy helping other families with Special Needs children. I have a lot of heart and passion invested in helping them. I don’t want another family to be left without answers on how to get support as I sometimes was.
Recently I realized that these two different needs creativity and serving don’t have to be separate and take up extra time. My need to create lends itself well to sharing with others. A love of writing lends itself well to supporting families with Special Needs children. My love of fiber arts lends itself well to donating to charities. Making music serves the church and God.
The opportunity to combine these two needs of my soul fulfills me and makes it possible for me to breathe. That is, as long as I don’t over commit myself…
ONe of God’s best ideas: our creativity bent reflects who He is!
Agreed!
Darling picture. Wonderful how what fills you can serve others.
Thank you.
Sometimes the “best yes” is a no! Visiting from Porch Stories.
Thanks for visiting!