"The Soul Tells a Story"

If your soul could tell your story,

what would it say?

Vinita Hampton Wright has me thinking about this.....deeply....thinking....about.....this.

Vinita was the Keynote speaker at the OC Christian Writer's Conference this year and what a surprise.

I mean, last year's conference was good and I learned so much, but had no idea that this woman would SEE into the depths of MY SOUL!

Like, she really understood my need, hunger and deep desire to write.

I would have never, ever expected her to express what she expressed,

in the way she expressed it that morning.

After I got passed checking her out, for the first 2 minutes,

taking in all of the "first impressions",

...she did something.

She began speaking.

She began speaking from her heart.

She began speaking to my heart.

She began speaking to ME!

She spoke on Creativity, and how it is directly related to our Spirituality.

She also shared that when you embark upon creative work,

you are pushing your own personal boundaries.

"Creative work is soul work; it happens in that interior place where

spiritual life forms the rest of life.

Your spiritual beliefs and your creative drive reside in the same place-

deep within you where everything important is stored."

She writes, "it will open up parts of yourself with which you have been unfamiliar.

It will cause you to ask questions of your life.

It will insist that you come up with names for things that until now you haven't examined carefully at all."

She spoke on the process of saying "YES!" to your creative gifts.

Here are a few:

You can expect to be misunderstood - I totally get this.

You can expect to scare some people - done.

You can expect to be rejected - yup.

You can expect to lose control - for sure.

You can expect to be harder on yourself- and when is that book going to be done?

"The blessing of nurturing your creative life, though, is that often you can use your gifts to explore the hell you're going through. (how did she know?)

Such exploration may not relieve the suffering, but it can form wisdom and strength in you."

You've got to get your hands on this book and your heart into this book.

It will encourage your path and give you depth of insight into your own soul.

It will help you understand not only your gift,

but the Gift Giver,

and how your gift is something that you in turn,

can offer to others.

In fact, that is why the gift was given to YOU...

to develop,

to love,

and

to share.

"When the artist is truly the servant of the work, the work is better than the artist; Shakespeare knew how to listen to his work, and so he often wrote better than he could write; Bach composed more deeply, more truly than he knew; Rembrandt's brush put more of the human spirit on canvas than Rembrandt could comprehend."

Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

If your soul could tell YOUR story,

what would it say?