🕯️ ✍️ 📖 🕊️

If the gift of creativity is in your hands, it is not random. Paint. Write. Sketch. Create. Even if the world does not clap, your soul will.

I genuinely believe the gift is in everyone’s hands. Before we walked, we danced. Before we reasoned, we sang. Before we had language, we drew, painted, and moved with confidence and freedom. Creativity was our first language.

Somewhere along the way, many of us learned that we were not creative. We were told, directly or indirectly, that creativity had no real benefit, no practical outcome, no measurable value. We decided it was a waste of time, especially if we were not exceptionally gifted, especially if there was no money in it.

I have written poems, journals, and blogs on and off for at least four decades. Words have always found their way onto paper, even when my voice felt uncertain and my confidence fragile.

I do not know exactly where my fear of painting came from. I have no clear memory of being told not to create. I only remember that no one ever really took notice of my creations. As long as I can remember, I believed I was not good enough.

The same belief followed me into singing, even though I loved it deeply. I never thought I was good enough. I carried severe audition anxiety every time I auditioned for a choir, only to be genuinely surprised when I was accepted.

It took me six attempts to pass the Greater Auckland Chorus audition. Not because I lacked ability, but because I set myself up for failure every time I knew I had to audition. Fear had already decided the outcome before I ever opened my mouth.

God, in His kindness, used those three years on the risers to build confidence and to train my voice for church choir, and later, for the worship team. He was preparing something in me long before I could see it.

When I was young, I dreamed of becoming a singer. One night when I was 18, I had a dream where I was standing on a stage with a microphone in my hand. As I woke up, I remember thinking clearly, that would be wonderful, but no, absolutely not. I am just not good enough.

What I have learned during my healing journey since my breakdown in 2018 is this: God gave me seven keys to healing hearts. They were not strategies or techniques, but sacred invitations.

Faith came first, anchoring everything in Him. Singing followed, giving voice to what words could not hold.

Drawing and painting allowed my heart to speak through colour and line.

Dancing returned movement to places that had frozen in fear.

Writing gave language to truth and grief alike. Last, but not least, speaking restored my voice, helping me reclaim what had been silenced.

God gave us these creative outlets so we could process our emotions. Creativity was never optional, decorative, or indulgent. It was designed as a holy pathway for expression.

In our refusal to be creative, for fear, for performance, for productivity, or for profit, we have often suppressed our emotions. In doing so, we have also suppressed our ability to express them righteously.

Creativity allows the heart to speak when words are insufficient. It gives shape to grief, colour to joy, and movement to healing. When we deny ourselves this God-given language, something within us grows silent.

🪨 Truth: Creativity is not about talent, applause, or outcomes. It is about obedience to the gift placed in your hands.

🌱 Hope: When you create, even quietly and imperfectly, something within you begins to breathe again.

💡 Reflection:

• Where did I first begin to believe that my creativity was not good enough 🤔

• Which of the seven creative keys might God be inviting me to explore or reclaim 🤔

• What emotion might God be inviting me to process through creativity today 🤔

🎺 Affirmation:

I receive the gift God has placed in my hands. I release the lie that I am not good enough, and I honour creativity as a sacred expression of healing, truth, and worship.

🙌 Prayer:

Father God, thank You for the gifts You placed within me before I ever learned fear or comparison. Thank You for the seven keys You use to heal hearts, faith, singing, drawing, painting, dancing, writing, and speaking. Restore what has been silenced. Heal what has been suppressed. Give me courage to create, not for applause, but for freedom and truth. Teach me to trust the work You are doing in and through me, even when it feels unseen.

In Jesus’ Name, Amen.