Art, Jesus and Me

So. I write. And people tell me I write nice. Creatively, that is. And that I must continue.

Me, I'm not too convinced. You see, I live life pretty intensely, and while this is a wonderful thing when I am happy (which I am the majority of the time), it is a most dark thing when I am down. My highs are HIGH
and my lows are
LOW.

Existential Crisis Number 1: The Angst of an Artistic Approach

Writing intensified these extremes even more, because listening to other people's stories and creating of my own induced in me so much Mitgefuhl and despair at hearing the stories of the lost,broken and hurt in the world that after a while I decided to stop producing anything of my own. (Not in terms of this blog, but in other things).

Enter Existential Crisis Number 2: The Crisis of a Creative not Creating.

Sigh.

I certainly can't win: Even more angst followed when I stopped creating. I needed some sort of outlet, and I was holding myself in very, very tightly.

"What do I do?", I asked a fellow Christian Creative a few days ago. "I can't bear to create 'cause I feel so much of everyone else's suffering! But then I feel this need in me to create something!!" [I'm dramatic. If you haven't noticed by now.]

"Grace", she said sweetly, "don't take this the wrong way, but no matter how much you feel you're suffering when you're creating, Jesus suffered so much more for us. And He gave you the gift of writing and creating, so just do."

Amen.

Existential Crises: Pretty Much Over.