Today is the 5th Monday of the month. 

These are the odd weeks.  The shifting week.  Starting with one month and ending with another, you never know quite which month you are supposed to act in.  Which month’s goals do you focus on?  Which month’s bills do you pay? This is the week that I share a struggle. 

Over Christmas this past year, I picked up Madeleine L'Engle's book 'Walking on Water'. I realized rather quickly that this was probably a mistake. Not only had I just read Andrew Peterson's 'Adorning the Dark' about being a christian who created art, but I wasn't a creative. While reading Peterson, I was faced with the urge to create something despite my complete lack of musical ability. I can't sing, play an instrument, or even hum. I am not a poet, for I still struggle to even read poetry. I don't weave fantastical tales into stories for eager readers everywhere. In short, I don't have a very creative mind. I've learned how to work with wood, but not well enough to create beautiful furniture, and I've built the skill of grammar, but grammar does not make a beautiful tale. So, when I opened L'Engle's book and she starts out with the struggle of being an artist and creating good art and reflecting, I knew that I was in trouble. 

In her pursuit of God, L'Engle found art. Because art shows us the very heart of our creator. He creates, and therefore, we all have the urge to create too. For we are made in His image. Some of us are better at it than others. I struggle with not being reflective or gifted enough to be a creative.  I want to draw, paint, sing, play the piano, but I've tried them all enough to know that those are not my calling in life. Instead, I am called to mathematics, administration, and the entire breadth of the left mind. In truth, I delight in this, but still I struggle. For the soul of the Spirit is in me and he creates in me a yearning to create, but I don't know what He wants me to do. I struggle to just find time to reflect let alone develop skills to reflect and create something. 

Which brings me to a conviction from L'Engle: We need to learn to Be. That is exist. Take time to be a person and think. Here is what L'Engle says in her own words, I hope you hear the truth in this and find time to be as we slide into the hullaballoo of Spring:

I sit on my favourite rock, looking over the brook, to take time away from busy-ness, time to be. I've long since stopped feeling guilty about taking being time; it's something we need for our spiritual health, and often we don't take enough of it.