I imagine painters see, feel, breathe bursts of color. That pigments of every hue run through
their veins, pulse in their chests. I imagine there are days they can’t not paint. Moments when
their minds are a blur of brushstrokes waiting to break free, yearning to pour out a message
through paint and canvas. That there is an image or emotion, landscape or lesson that must leak
out in artistic expression before it is lost.
I imagine musicians see, feel, breathe chords and melodies. That notes and lyrics course
through their bodies, syncopated rhythms dictate their hearts’ very beat. I imagine there are
days they can’t not sing, compose, or play. Moments when their minds buzz with musical
phrases, magical verses, harmonies, interludes, or stylistic attitudes. That there is a song that
must be birthed through voice or instrument, inspiration that must move from conceptual
feeling to tangible expression lest something in them be lost.
I don’t know these things to be true. I’m not a painter or composer. I’m not singer, songwriter,
print maker, or piano player.
But if I had to put my money where my imagination is, I wouldn’t hesitate because of what I
do know as an artist.
Yes, I am an artist.
I’m a writer.
My medium isn’t soft pastels or rhythmic runs; I don’t create with acrylics or arching melodies.
My art is made of words.
Nouns, adjectives, and verbs strung together to tell the stories that
vibrate across my heartstrings. I see the world not through color or song, but through description
and analysis.
My mind begins to craft the retelling even as I’m in the middle of the living. It’s not contrived—
it’s how I’m wired. It makes me come alive.
Surely writing, like all artistry, requires discipline and intentional focus. It’s not all creative
inspiration just floating by. But one way I know I’m an artist is when I’m not trying
to make
art, but art is trying to make me.
The art I can’t not create.
The words can’t not write.
(The technical writer in me cringes at my repeated use of a double negative, but sometimes the
incorrect is just plain right. There’s no truer way to say it.)
It was this kind of soul-need to create, to let out the convictions dressed up as descriptions that
overwhelmed me last Friday as I pulled into a Trader Joe’s parking lot.
The need to exhale the art was so strong
I wished in that moment I was a musician who could
belt it out in song, strum it loud over nylon strings, or pound out the poetry through ivory keys. I
longed for the joy satisfaction of swabbing a brush across a pallet and bringing to life the scene
stored in my heart.
But that’s not the art God gave me, at least not last Friday as I parked my silver minivan
between white painted lines.
But there was an invitation to art I couldn’t ignore.Before I dashed into the store on this rare kid-free shopping trip, I dug into the depths of my
mama purse, between the baby wipes and melted crayons, and retrieved my
artist’s tools.
With pen and paper in hand, I scribbled out my heart song, my art song, my
poem to Jesus on a busy Friday afternoon I couldn’t not write.
I don’t want to rush my time with you
I don’t want to hurry up, hurry through
I don’t want to rush my time with you
So I can rush on to the next
There should be no next when I’m with you now
I don’t want to say hold on a sec
I don’t want to say hold on
I don’t want to say hold on a sec
When you call my name
I don’t want to say hold on
Make you wait
While I make up my mind to answer your call
I don’t want to put you on the back burner, bottom rung
I don’t want to put you in the last box on my list
No, you’re not a thing to check off
First in my life should never be pushed to the back, bottom, last
So why do I keep putting you there?
First things should be first, top, foremost,
Utmost importance, utmost in my life.
How can I make the most of you
When I don’t give you the most of me?
Most of my time, most of my mind?
How can I show others I know you
If I don’t take the time to know you
Be known by you?
You mean more to me than a last place, misplaced priority
Yes, you mean more to me
Yeah, we don’t rush the most important
We don’t rush through, hurry up what we truly savor
Let me savor my Savior
Let my time with you be like sipping my morning joe
Delighting in each sweet, creamy, awakening drink
Let me drink you in like my eyes soak up the setting sun
Ablaze with electric orange and fiery pink
Let me linger long with you like I do
As the sky fades to lightest lavender and steely gray
Let me look intently in your eyes, your heart
Hanging onto every word like I do
When it’s my best friend, favorite speaker, hero writer
—the ones I love or love to put on pedestals
—the ones I want to be like and with and for
Let me gaze long at you before I ever look to them
Yes, may my looking be deliberate
Slow with decision and delight
No rushing here
No rushing here
No putting off till tomorrow the beauty
That could be mine today
The beauty of sitting at your feet and holding on to you
My Jesus
My pen came to a stop and I exhaled deep the satisfaction of doing the thing God gave me to do.
To make art. Not perfect masterpieces—no, this poem was a scribbled mess—but to get to know
Him through the messy, mundane, beautiful process of making it.
God calls to me through my art.Through my art I respond, and invite others to join with me.* * *
How has God used art in your life?
What does making art mean to you?* * *
Linking with
Jennifer,
Holley, and the
The High Calling
for their special series called Art Matters.