created to create

“Have you ever noticed our culture lives off other people’s acts of creation? Consider how many ‘awards’ shows fill the television schedule – the Grammys, the People’s Choice Awards, the MTV Awards, the Golden Globes, the Dove Awards, the Emmys, the list goes on and on – as our culture lives vicariously through the achievements of others.

You were made by God to create. If you don’t create in a thoughtful and worshipful manner, you will feel less than human because you are, in fact, acting in a subhuman mode. A life spent in a dead-end, joyless job with evenings spent in front of a television set and weekends spent ‘passing the time’ will feel like hell on earth because it is. Don’t waste your life! Build something worthwhile through God’s creative energy.” – Gary Thomas, Simply Sacred

All the kids in my family are on “non-traditional” career paths. My mom once said,

“Why do none of my kids have ‘real’ jobs?”

Well, maybe it has something to do with the fact that my mom was a stay-at-home mom who was constantly doing creative art projects with us – painting, drawing, playing make believe – and playing outside with us – bike rides, rollerblading, and even dirt biking in the flood plain behind our neighborhood.

Whether it was nature or nurture, I’m not sure. But my sister is a talented artist and poet, married with a little boy and with another on the way. She has also been the most caring, fun, and artistically stimulating nanny to three young boys. My younger brother accidentally turned his love for wakeboarding into a career by shooting and editing videos of himself and his friends creating a seemingly endless amount of
rails, jumps, and other slightly-less-legal ways to “shred.” (See what I mean at shredtown.com.)

And I am an actress.

I’ve come to realize there is no “cookie cutter” lifestyle.

The other day my mom said, “Wow. Who would have thought Andrew would be a professional wakeboarder traveling the world and you would be an actress in LA?”

I sort of love not knowing what my life will bring. I never in a million years would have thought I would be where I am now. But I do know that the Lord has created us to create. And He has created me to create.

Whatever the Lord has inspired you to create, get out there and do it! Do it for His purposes and for His glory… and you won’t regret it.