A Motsenbocker Song & Creative Covid 19 Struggle

I've been listening to a lot of Tyson Motsenbocker lately.

Specifically, "In His Name". It's a tender song, raw. He touches on the very real wrestling match most of us engage in while connecting our faith with God's interaction in our lives here in the dirt, in the grittiest and most personal scenarios.

He asks a version of a question most of us ask at some point - why does it seem like God is with the winning football team and not with my mom on her premature and painful deathbed?

"It's an honest hearts reaction - who, my God, have you been listening to?"

There are a million questions like this, aren't there. And even though God's beauty and wonder and awe and personal rescuing, tenderness and joy unfolds each and every day, all around the world, in these gritty moments, when we're in it, the questions are true and personal and real.

Which leads me to the creative connection.

These moments foster, like "In His Name", characteristics and meaning and words and sounds and emotion and past thoughts and future dreams and creative overflow in our creative pursuits. From authors to architects, the spiritual / internal wrestling of artists tends to eventually grow into the fruit of works of art, offered and shared and pressed into.

Is that true for you?

Today the world is in a season of struggle, all at the same time, impacted by the same disease. I know, I know, hunger and human trafficking and drug smuggling and gang violence and child abuse and disappointment and broken dreams and political unrest... struggle is always alive and painful. Yet there's something about an immediate common struggle, a universal one, like sin, that stirs the pot and presses us to tenderly sing our version of "In His Name".

Q. What are you creating in the struggle?

Q. What aspects of compassion are you living and feeling in new ways? How is it inspiring your work?

Q. What traits are you grappling with as the world engages sickness / healing and despair / hope? What images, sounds, words, ideas, concepts are being stirred in the mix?

Q. Are you ready to capitalize on your time at home, in a season of tamping down on social connection and distraction; partition off the anxiety from your creative space, and create?

Not sure where to begin? Let's connect. Reach out and let's spend:

a session,

or a month-long boot-camp mapping out your Creative Habits,

or a season of discovering Mission and Vision and Values on your journey.

Why wait? What do you hope will be different 3, 6 or 12 months from today?

Let's discover it out together.

330.962.5617 Call / Text

creativistacoaching@gmail.com

creativistacoaching.com

Creating Miracles in the Grind

Miracles are those extraordinary events that catch our attention from beyond reason, outside explanation, past what's naturally explainable. Healings, rescues, opened eyes, paid bills, surprise friendships, unexpected partnerships... Miracles happen and they're fantastic and awesome and, well, miraculous.

But if we wait around for miracles to form in order to move forward, in order to find healing and freedom and rescue and movement forward, I think we'll be waiting a while. We'll miss a lot of the beauty and grit in making life happen on a daily basis. We'll miss out on the adventure.

Miracles tend to happen in the midst of adventure.

I think our creative pursuits function this way.

I think we have seasons, whether we're creating for profit and vocation, or as hobbyists and retirees and spare time enthusiasts... whatever the case, I think there are times when lighting strikes and the miracle of a brilliant piece of art, song, design or writing appears out of the overflow of our fingertips. From soul to song.

Yet if we only create in those miraculous moments, we miss out on all the work churned and refined and revealed in the meantime.

Some might say that every creative product is a miracle. That each piece is in some way divine, connecting the creativity of heaven with the creative pallet of earth. I like that thought.

But I also know that some creations really are a notch beyond. I think you do to. That song that grabs your heart. That design that catches your eye and grips your mind. That book that settles in deep. As though the artist were channeling something divine for my singular benefit. Yeah, some works are just beyond.

And in my limited observation, just as miracles tend to happen in the midst of the journey, the trial or a life taking shape (think of Jesus healing the blind or disappearing through the mob, or a cancer inexplicably disappearing or a debt anonymously settled), creative otherness, masterpieces, and transcending works of art seem to happen in the midst of making the daily take shape.

I don't know about any 15 minutes of fame, but there's something in the daily creative grind that sets the stage for a little more light, a bit more clarity and lot more joy in the process.

Confidence Like a Full-Body Massage

Think about someone you know who is confident in their skin and ability and faith and decisions.

Not arrogant. Not prideful. Not boasty. Just confident. Comfortable with who they are and what they have to offer the world. Continuously maturing into more and more confidence.

Confidence is connected to certainty that something simply is. It's also connected to trust, being able to confide in someone. But it also goes on to connect this position of trustworthy certainty with faith and belief. That somehow being confident, I mean truly and honestly confident, is a lifestyle of faith in what we're certain of while living such a trustworthy life that others are both drawn and willing to confide in our being.

Simply put, confidence is trusting that our abilities, both God-breathed and dirt-earned, are certainly sufficient for life in action, here and now.

Are you confident in who you are designed to be? In your capabilities? In your faith? In your skin, whatever shape and color and size that may be?

What's next? What one area of life will you take a step forward in to grow in confidence?

How? Some not-so-original thoughts:

• Pick a skill and develop it. It feels good to be competent.

• Stop trying to please everyone. Choose one healthy aspect of your journey and develop some healthy habits for the long haul.

• A healthy and simple shift in appearance. This can be a simple way of breaking a cycle of funk, depression, victim-mindset, feeling trapped etc.

• Change your lifestyle habits: go to bed earlier, wake up earlier, exercise, change diet, spend time in Scripture and prayer, volunteer, mentor or disciple, create a schedule and stick to it, ease up on your schedule...

• Find a more encouraging, engaging and motivating tribe.

Being good at something, being thankful and pouring both of these out on others is an awesome way to build some confidence for the long haul.