Would you Believe...

One of my favorite CDs is one by Christy Lane titled "Footprints In The Sand".  The song titles alone could be used for meditation, not to mention the words of the songs.  "I Have a Dream", "He Sees My Heart", "The Last Word in Jesus is Us" and "Making Up For Lost Time".  The songs are all beautiful and the words to the songs can really touch my heart, but just the titles can start my mind working on many, many thoughts.  It takes a truly creative mind to put the emotional and pictorial together in just words and yet that is what song writers do every day.  Those of us who enjoy photography try to tell a story or share the beauty of the world with others through the photographs we take.  I have met people who would say to me, "I don't have a creative bone in my body", and I always disagreed with them.  We each have a God-given creativeness that we can share with others.  For some it may be song writing, photography, singing, painting or most of the things we think of so often as creativity.  However, think outside the box, if you will.  The ability to smile through adversity and bring joy to others during those times takes far more talent than what we usually think of as creative.  Delivering a speech filled with emotion and passion because a person believes in what they are talking about takes tremendous creativity to transfer those feelings from yourself to others.  I often listen to teenagers as they describe a dream they have or simply relating a story of daily happenings.  Many of them can bring the words to life as I listen to them and I can begin to feel their excitement, joy, fears or hopes.  The words we are given and the ways we express those words can in itself be creativity.  Picture a Mom or Dad telling a bedtime story to a child that they are making up as they tell the story.  I had a nephew who always wanted me to tell him stories when he was between 3 and 6 years of age, but he had rules - the stories could never end and I had to start where I had ended a day or two before.  The animals could talk and travel anywhere, from the earth to the heavens and back, into fantasy lands and back to reality.  I was never sure who was telling the story and who was creating the pictures we both saw in our minds.  Was it me, the person talking and stringing the tale or the young child who interrupted with his own ideas of where the animals should go, what they should say and who they should talk to?  In the song "The Last Word In Jesus Is Us" the first words are  "When all your dreams and hopes just seem to crumble to the ground... lift up your heart, open your eyes..."  and that is so true for each of us.  To anyone who thinks they don't have any creativity, my reply would be - Would you believe?  For those who believe, anything is possible because God is always with us in our dreams.   

"We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed..We who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body."  ~2 Corinthians 4:8-11