1.15.2014

The Art of Being Yourself

Art Series #1

So lately I've been studying art. Not the painting that I so love to do (no matter if it looks like a bunch of blobs that I tend to get allllll over myself in the process...), but your art. My art.

It all started with a book A Million Little Ways by Emily P Freeman. It's about when we become ourselves and do what we were made to do, how God comes out of us in a million little ways.  http://www.chattingatthesky.com/a-million-little-ways/

Maybe you've never thought of it like this, but maybe art is a verb. Something you do, not only something you make.

Art is what happens when you dare to be who you really are.

Who you really are is who God made you to be. No more masks. Nothing to hide behind. He won't buy that façade anymore. Actually, God never did. He knows you, he knows you inside and out, backwards and forwards. He knows your deepest fears and darkest secrets and everything you hate about yourself. God also knows your gifts and talents because He made them! He made you.

What'd He make you for? To make art! To be the uniquely wonderful you, gifted in talents and weaknesses, just as you are for HIM.

But sometimes it hurts to be yourself. It hurts so much. Why? Because it means admitting your iniquities and sins and faults and failures and the fact that you can't even make ravioli right. Admitting yourself to you and to others, and living to be yourself  is such a something that has no barriers...no walls, no nothing. It's just you. Doesn't that scare you? Usually I feel like we have walls up to protect ourselves from ourselves! How unproductive is that? Art comes out when your walls are down. Being yourself is also something that's on a level so raw, so deep--because it's something God designed.

You may have heard some of this before, but really, let your layers and masks that help you hide from yourself and others slowly drop away. There's a whole other dimension of yourself and your potential that you probably haven't tapped into. You think God is good now? Let Him work through you more and I can guarantee that there's something bigger and better up ahead.

"Part of the art is having the faith to believe that Jesus still works in our weaknesses. Maybe especially so."
Emily Freeman


Who am I to do these things and still be loved like I am?

A child of God, that's who.


That's you.



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