You are different. Thats no secret, right?

Some people say you’re weird. Sometimes you feel like you’re weird. And the truth is…you are.

Some days you wake up and wonder if you’re an alien in this world, a creature from another planet that no one understands. You are.

On occasion, and usually at the worst time, the voices of insecurity are so loud in your head and your heart that you wonder if you can even continue to go on. You must.

You wonder why you have to care so much. Why each piece you create, note you sing, word you hum, and story you edit has to be so personal. Why every word of criticism or correction shakes you to your core and makes you want to run away.

Even when you’re doing your best and most honest, important work, you feel the sting of rejection because you’re different than the rest.

You’re overcome with wonder – wonder if people love you for who you are or what you do for them? Do they love the person or the creations the person makes?

This is the tension of being an artist. This is the curse of being creative.

But God created you this way. Intentionally. He planned this.

He Loves You. He not only accepts you for who you are, he purposefully made you this way. The designer of the universe designed you like you are – with the faults and flaws, the fears and insecurity, the gifts and wonder, the imagination and creativity, the leadership and ability to be uniquely you.

You feel deeply because He uses you to show his beauty to others. Your art matters to you because it’s a reflection of who you are…just like you are a reflection of who He is.

You’re different. You’re unique. Great artists always have been and it’s not because you have tattoos, dress different, or are “odd,” it’s because the uniqueness of your identity was given to you by a heavenly father that knew you needed to be different to share how He is different. He knew you would be the chocolate in a world filled with vanilla. He knew you would feel alone and lost, misunderstood and confused. He knew you would be filled with fear and overcome with passion…and He did it anyway because he loves you more than you could imagine. He loves you so much He could not for one second allow you to be ordinary because that would be a waste of the amazing gifts He has given you.

So today, embrace the artist that lives inside of you.

Walk confidently in the fact you are original and in the art that makes you uniquely you.

Allow His image to shine through you.

Find your identity in Him, not in the things He allows you to create because He cares so much more about who you are becoming then he cares about what you are creating.

You have to face your fear  because this art you create, this person you are, this space that is being created for you is not yours in the first place…it’s His and He created it for you.

As artists, we too often get lost in these things; we allow our identity to be trapped and our fear to keep us from creating. The truth is we are at our best when we’re aware of all these feeling and emotions, and then we press on anyway.

When we do, we honor our Creator more than our creations and we allow Him to be our source…not the stuff that we create.

Be uniquely you today…and forever.