It’s Time to Recognize Your Creative Call

I had to pull off to the side of the road because tears were blurring my vision, making driving dangerous and hard. What was I hearing on the Christian radio station?

God delighted in my creative work.

More than that, He gifted me to create. He created me to create. This desire to write wasn’t vainglorious or self-centered, quite the opposite! It was selfish of me to not write!

Created for more

For the first time as a Christian woman, I was hearing that God created me for more than good works and clean living. My buttoned-up heart was bursting through my chest upon hearing permission to pursue my creative gifts as an expression of God’s creative process and as a way to serve Him.

It seems like a no brainer now (some 16 years later) and many women may wonder how I was so tied up in knots about using my creative gifts, but I’m convinced there are still women within reading distance of this message who hold back, hide their desires to create, and downplay their gifts.

The focus on dos and don’ts can quench the creative soul

A young man I once knew told me the reason He couldn’t follow Jesus was because if he did he wouldn’t be allowed to play his music anymore. Sadly, what He didn’t hear from Christians trying to convert him was that his music and the desire to make music his way was from the Creator Himself.

The creative gifts He places in us are extensions of His creative nature. Creation didn’t stop on the sixth day, it continues through all of us as we create and extend the beauty of God into the world.

Serving our gift is not self-serving; it is God-serving. As we become servants to our talents, we become more fulfilled. We stop trying to please others…We become happier, more at peace, less resentful, and more fun to be around. — Janice Elsheimer, The Creative Call

I’ve been in Christian churches for 30 years and, quite honestly, have not once heard this teaching. If you have found a church that celebrates your God-given gifts as a woman AND helps you fulfill them, consider yourself most blessed!

Aside from working in the nursery, making the coffee, or serving on the worship team (I don’t have a musical gene in my body), and learning how to be a better wife (whatever that means), my gifts of leadership, teaching, and writing seemed to have no place (or a very narrow place).

I was even told by one pastor that I needed to “fit the mold” of a good Christian woman if I wanted to please God. God knows I wanted to please Him, but this message felt a bit messed up for me to embrace.

A deacon in another church told me that if I wanted to lead a small group I’d better “get my husband on board” first. Is there much sexism in the church or was I just unlucky at picking churches?

When God revealed to me the gift of writing, I honestly did not know what to do with it.

Coupled with my training as a teacher, it felt like the most natural way for me to live my life for God. It just didn’t seem that anyone in the church was talking about creative gifts much (aside from musical gifts which are practically worshipped in the church).

So for a long time, I hid my gift. I sat on it. I got busy in places that seemed to appreciate my aptitude for leadership and training and writing: the world. Until I realized that my efforts and passion were misplaced.

I returned to the message I heard that day on the radio

I’m allowing God to heal all my insecurities, doubts, and fears. I keep brushing that chip off my shoulder and reminding myself that it doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of my life and I need no man’s approval to deploy my gifts into the world.

The message I heard that day? It’s from Janice Elsheimer, author of The Creative Call.

Janice’s message broke through my bound up heart and opened rivers of life into my soul. I still mention this book to Christian women today and am usually met with the response, “Never heard of it.” This confirms my belief that the church is not yet embracing women in their full potential and giving them a path to the creative life.

I’ll be your biggest cheerleader

I now know that I never needed the church’s permission or a path created by anyone because I’ve had everything I needed in Christ. However, it’s taken my lifetime to see that. My dream is that we embolden and equip young women out of the gate to discover their creative gifts for use in the church and the world even if that looks a little askew aside our theology.

I cringe inside every time I hear a woman tell me about their secret creative life that never sees the light of day while they bury themselves in the title of Wife and Mother or maybe Teacher. I’ve been all three — there’s nothing wrong with any of them — but I’m more than that and not fully expressing myself was dulling my soul.

Doing artist work, when we let the Spirit lead us, is doing God’s work. — Janice Elsheimer, The Creative Call

I’m excited and all ears when someone speaks to me about their art or their writing or their ideas for a flower design business. I jump all over their dreams and encourage them to go for it. And yet I know I’ve hidden mine for a long time. Do as I say, not as I do!

I’m still teasing out the reasons, as Christian women, we hide our gifts. I could postulate here but I don’t think I’ve talked with enough women on a deep soul level that would allow me to speak for them. I can only speak for myself — which is what I am doing now — breaking out of that mold, devil be damned!

I was made to create and create I will in whatever way will open doors of freedom for other women!

What are you holding back from the world? What creative gift do you think is vain or unproductive? Is it time to take that gift off the shelf and open your heart to what God wants to create through you for His glory and to bring joy to the world?

Despite Stephen King’s advice about not using -ly words, I’m going to make an exception here and say I am extremely grateful for the publishers and editors here on Koinonia for making this a safe space to create! Much love to you all for your hard work and dedication to Christian writers! Janis Cox Kimberley Payne Bett Harris

This story is published in Koinonia — stories by Christians to encourage, entertain, and empower you in your faith, food, fitness, family and fun.

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