On creativity

One day when I only had five children, my friend Michelle dropped in for lunch when I was feeling especially low. My mom, my husband, and all my kids are so creative—we have artists and musicians and storytellers—and in comparison I felt so very uncreative.

As I was complaining, I was making soup out of leftovers, pulling odds and ends out of the freezer to fill it out, absentmindedly dumping in spices, and tasting it every once in a while. When we sat down to eat, Michelle said that when she was watching me make it she was kind of horrified because I wasn’t really even paying attention to what I was doing, but she called it the best soup she’d ever eaten, and told me to stop thinking of myself as lacking in creativity.

Don’t think of “creativity” as something that’s limited to the fine or performing arts, or to writing poetry and stories.

You are made in God’s image, so you are creative! You just need to learn to recognize all the creative things you’re already doing.

Making soup without a recipe is creative. Building a chicken coop is creative. Keeping the lawn tidy and attractive is creative. Working puzzles is creative. Seeing connections between seemingly unrelated things is creative. Making your bed and placing the pillows “just so” is creative. Deciding which books out of all the possibilities your children should read next is creative. Having your spices or tools or pencils arranged so that you can find exactly what you want when you want it is creative.

Do you see the common thread here?

In all of these activities, you are imitating God’s creative work in the beginning: Bringing order out of chaos.

Take Michelle’s advice: Stop thinking of yourself as lacking in creativity. Look for the ways you are already bringing order out of chaos, and build from there.