Waking Up The Artist Inside

I have a friend who is an artist. She is struggling to create again. She feels like she lost part of herself in the shuffle towards middle age. She has the charm bracelet of mid-life: kids, mortgage, marriage, retirement account, tired body, minivan. She has a happy life, but she knows that part of her has slowly died. It wasn’t a bullet, it was a starvation of the artist within her.  

She tells me she is afraid that the art won’t rise up in her like it once did. She is a prisoner to fear, but at least she knows it.

I want to grab her thin shoulders and shake her back and forth. I want to yell, “what are you waiting for?” “You honestly think there will be a cabin in the woods for you to disappear to paint, to write…to create?”

“You know that charm bracelet of mid life means there will never be this long, uninterrupted days to fall into the deep creative vortex!”

We always make time for what matters. Always.

You know who needs you? The people who forgot that they cried at a symphony, because music unlocked a part of their soul they didn’t know existed.  The ones that couldn’t walk away from that painting in the museum, because they were captured by the story it told. The people who loved a book so much they read it dozens of times until they began to think like the author. We need you to help them find this part of themselves again.

In the end you really have an audience of One. Your Creator. He gave you these great gifts, this raw talent. He does not want you to waste it. Check out the parables if you want to know how God feels about people wasting what they have been given.

Is that too harsh for you? Am I calling you a waster? Yes, I am. And it’s true. Your thin excuses are a big waste.

I know you fear that you won’t be able to find your creative flow again...the good news is it is right in front of you. Take the first step. Go back to the place, physically or musically where you felt the movement in your soul. When your heart was engaged and your overactive mind finally, oh finally, lost all track of time.

You are a steward of the gifts you have been given, the artist inside that is longing to come to the world. You do not own your talent, you are the caretaker of it.

That person is still there. The artist is just begging to surface. We need to hear your voice, read your words, gaze upon the beauty you have created. We need you to get back to work. The whole world is watching and waiting...