How do I know my talent is a gift from God?

Well, I like so many other hard headed youth tested it. I removed God from every crevice I could. I sought to do things only that seemed thrilling or even better dangerous. I could go into detail but those details would only detract attention from point of this post. When I removed God, I removed the very core of my creative spirit. I was a shell of the artist I had been in my child hood and early teens. The “wiser” late teen Heather resorted to shock value and following others for creative vision, which were mediocre at best. I spent years without painting, feeling empty.

What changed? Well in baby steps I found my way back to my heavenly father… who as I look back is the only reason I lived through my stupid self destructive years. And the closer I came to him the more the ideas and paintings in my head started to flow. They flowed until I could no longer hold back the tide and I had to paint. Like trying to hold your breath under water, I had no other response but that of desperately getting the thoughts onto paper or canvas.

The closer I got to God the more the creativity rushed forward. From God placing me at a company I always said I wanted to work for when I was that obedient child of the past. To receiving a drawing mannequin a day after the word was uttered… “I need a mannequin”, from someone in another state with no knowledge of the need.

I can think of no better way to put it than how it is stated in Isaiah 58:11. “The LORD will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.”

I sit in a home filled with art and the love of God and my family knowing without a doubt that my creative spirit is filled from only one fountain, the spring of eternal life and love that Jesus Christ offered to us all so long ago. A spring that is as fresh today as it was the day he rose, no matter what my choices were. Like the parent of toddler found with scissors and one of her mother’s pillow cases in tatters, he forgave me and wrapped me in love and blessed art in my soul.

Hugs,
Heather