There’s a truth that my cynical heart obviously needed to hear desperately. I know this because I read the idea in two completely different books in the same week. It’s simple, perhaps, but oh so hard for me to believe: My personal work, my creative endeavors, they matter. And so do yours.
All too often I’m tempted to throw my hands up in frustration because so many people are writing, so many people are teaching, so many people are already speaking to topics that I’m passionate about. Any contribution of mine would just add to the noise. Or maybe, even worse, there’s not even room for my contribution. Any other writers feel me here? Musicians? Artists? People who think that everybody and his mother is in your profession or major, and there’s only a few precious job openings? It can be difficult to know where you fit.
I hadn’t originally planned on reading Uninvited by Lysa Terkeurst when its image crowded my Instagram feed upon its release about a year ago. I’m glad I did though. One chapter with a self-explanatory title (“Her Success Does Not Threaten Mine”) won’t be leaving my thoughts anytime soon. In it, Terkeurst argues that when we trust the Lord to provide opportunities hand-crafted for us, we don’t have to be envious when someone else gets a job or an award or a success that we would rather have for ourselves. We can rejoice with her instead. There’s other work for us to do that’s better suited for us.
“There is an abundant need in this world for your exact brand of beautiful.”
There it was. A line that hit me hard because it was so far removed from the lie I’d been telling myself.
Ok, so maybe that’s a quote to be expected from a Christian book that talks about dealing with rejection. But at the same time, I was also reading Bird By Bird by Anne Lamott, a book that is chocked full of the author’s little insights into how to become a better writer. I’m just reading along and WHAM! Ms. Lamott drops it on me out of nowhere.
“Life is like a recycling center, where all the concerns and dramas of humankind get recycled back and forth across the universe. But what you have to offer is your own sensibility, maybe your own sense of humor or insider pathos or meaning. All of us can sing the same song, and there will still be four billion different renditions.”
I’m a fairly hard-shelled person who often feels disgust at my own softer insides. Naturally, then, my knee-jerk reaction is to roll my eyes and make a snarky comment at any sort of “you are special” spiel. “No, you can NOT be anything you want to be!” is the war cry of my inner skeptic. Thousands of kids want to be president and I can say with utter certainty that it ain’t happening for the vast majority of them. And if I see one more “beYOUtiful” decorative sign…
“There’s nothing new under the sun” (Ecclesiastes 1:9), originality is a seeming myth, and our culture is way too saturated with individualism anyway. So whatever I have to offer as one soul among the masses can’t be that significant, right?
Wrong.
When God made the earth, He created it with all kinds of potential. Potential for endless good that humans can cultivate if they so choose. “Subdue the earth,” He says (Genesis 1:28). Men and women are to harness the world’s resources to build and to create. I find the language of “human flourishing” to be so helpful here. Mirroring their Maker, humans are little creators assigned with the task of bringing out all the good that God’s world has to offer.
This grand development project is unfortunately stunted when sin comes into the picture. The image of the Creator is fractured, but it doesn’t leave us altogether. We still shoulder the responsibility of cultivating beauty in an ugly world. And that necessitates individual contribution.
When I was little, my Nana used to have a phrase that she’d love to whip out anytime we came to a crowded restaurant. The place could be at the height of a busy lunch hour, swarmed with people, with every table occupied. And still, she would smile at me and say, “There’s always room for two more!”
As long as you were created by your Heavenly Father (and you were, friend), you carry a purpose of knowing Him and making Him known. And to some extent, the way you flesh out that purpose is totally unique to you. You are beautifully nuanced. No one can bring to the table quite the same thing as you do. There’s a place for your talents, your creativity, your voice. In a world with billions of people, there’s room for one more.
Cultivate. 