Artist. Or Not.

I mentioned a while back that I was embarking on a journey to discover what my calling is as an artist.  It’s really important that you understand I have never, EVER viewed myself as an artist.  I learned early on that I was not capable of drawing anything other than a stick figure and my natural interests just never led me in the way of other artistic endeavors.  I thought art was drawing, painting, pottery, basically things you created with your hands and your artistic eye.  I spent many years learning and playing the piano, but I played strictly what the sheet music told me to play so I didn’t even think that was artistic.  I wrote essays and speeches very successfully in school, but failed miserably at writing creative fiction.  It never occurred to me that writing anything other than creative fiction was artistic in any way.  In the years that followed, I labeled myself very concretely as an un-artistic person and I lived in that, I was totally ok with it. 

And yet I found myself a few months ago in a small room packed with a whole bunch of women, many whom I know to be amazing artists, all of us wanting to learn who we are as artists and how to use the talents God has given us.  I can’t really explain why I even went to this first meeting.  I mean, why in the world would an un-artistic person want to learn how to be artistic?  It’s something you have or you don’t, right?  And I thought I had proven I did not have it!  But something about the description piqued my interest and I took the plunge.  It’s been an interesting journey to say the least. 

We’re 7 chapters into the book and I’m just now beginning to think I might, just might, have some artistic abilities that God would possibly want to use.  I wish I could tell you I’ve approached this with a positive attitude, but my lack of self-confidence in this area has really made the whole journey hard.  It’s like I know God can use whatever I give Him, He’s awesome like that, but I have myself convinced that what I have to offer is nowhere good enough.  I’m constantly fighting against what I know to be true.  One week I’m feeling secure in that I am God’s artist, that what I have to offer doesn’t have to be good, it just has to be offered.  Another week I feel like God might as well skip right over me and use somebody who really has valuable artistic abilities.  I’ve even had a bit of a pity party over this.

But God’s recently given me some insights that have turned my attitude around.  I’ve always thought that an artist has the ability to see beyond what is to what it can be, that an artist can see beauty in the broken, discarded things of this world and have the ability to turn them into something beautiful.  God has shown me that while I don’t have that kind of vision or talent when it comes to objects, colors, or blank canvases, I do have that vision when it comes to people.  And while I certainly can’t create people, I can allow God to use my words and actions to help hurt, broken and seemingly discarded people become who He desires for them to be.  Whether that’s through my story told in person or in my writing, through helping lead a room full of people in worship, or simply through sharing music with my children in our home, God can see my heart and use whatever I’m willing to give Him, talented, marketable or not, to make beautiful things.  So while I may never identify myself as an artist, I can definitely call myself His artist.