MAKING SPACE

When visiting one of my kids recently, my heart smiled to find this... 

...and this...

...lying about the house. Whether is it's playing music, painting, baking bread, writing, drawing, blending spices for smoked meat, sewing costumes, or designing farm plans, when I catch glimpses of my kids engaging in creative work, I feel like the world is a better place, like I can breathe a little deeper. When they are creating, they are reflecting something of the beauty and delightfulness of their Creator God.

One of my prayers for my (now adult) children is: "Lord, please give them space to create." I pray this because creative work requires time, thought, mental and physical energy, and the demands of life easily strangle creativity.

Life in this broken world is hard for every single one of us. It is exhausting. The demands on our time are never-ending. Whether you work 8-, 10-, or 12-hour days, there is always more that needs to be done, more that our consciences or our families or our employers or our churches tell us should be done.

If you have read this blog more than a few times, you have undoubtedly recognized a common theme to many of my posts: I. Am. Tired.

I run hard all day, then come home to pull in a different harness every evening. As I explained to my boss recently, "There is no quiet space in my life. Zero."

CAN WE PLEASE JUST TAKE A BREAK FROM ALL THE INCESSANT DEMANDS?!

One of the many things I miss deeply in all this work-work-work is space to write. It occurred to me recently: I pray regularly for God to give my children space for creative work. Why don't I pray the same prayer for myself?

And so I started praying for God to provide consistent space in my schedule for me to write. Through the very practical advice of my therapist LeCretia, God answered that prayer and gave me a tiny window in which to write: 9:45-10:30 every Sunday morning.

This small gift of time was enough to reignite the engines and get rusty gears turning again. But once the creative juices began flowing, I quickly realized that 45 minutes each week was not going to be enough.

"Lord, I need more time to write," I prayed.

Again, He answered: "Well, then, make time."

Make time. Yeah, right, like that is even possible. I've been banging my head against this one for a couple of months now.

I have a thick skull.

After months of head-banging, a new thought began growing inside my slow mind: perhaps what God is telling me is not so much "Make time" as "Trust me."

God gives me - and you - 24 hours each day, 168 hours each week. If God is telling me to "make time" to write (and if I don't have a time turner, like Hermione Granger), then He must be telling me to spend less time someplace else.

That means giving up something that I think is essential, 'cause I ain't got no free time at present. Whether it's giving up full-time work as a nurse (and the benefits that go with full-time employment) or giving up full-time responsibility for Mom-care, that thought terrifies me.

In fact, it seems downright impossible.

And so my prayer has morphed from "God, please give me time and space to write" - to - "Lord, please give me faith to trust you and courage to act."

Because I understand now that making space to write is going to demand a leap of faith.