Embracing the Call of an Artist

Hello all! I’m in a new season of life, recently ending 4 years of work with SPO as an admin missionary, and now entering a season of full-time motherhood.

During this new season I’m also cultivating a small art business and ministry, which in some ways feels like I’m stepping into my “dream job”, even if in just a part-time capacity. Here on this website, and particularly as of the writing of this blog, you’ll find the humble beginnings of an artist trying to make sense of many dreams and visions and discern what is meant to be embraced and cultivated in this particular season.

I’ve wanted this moment for a long time, and in the couple years leading up to this transition and still now as I begin to enter in, I’ve done a lot of reflecting on the dichotomy between the general understanding of a “dream job”, even in the Christian sense of being called to “do” or “be” something with one’s life, and another understanding which I’ve come to consider “living out of a calling”. In the previous sense, you arrive one day at your “calling” and start living out of it at that moment, when all the pieces line up, and after much hard work leading up to it. That’s how I used to understand my calling as an artist, and honestly how I feel tempted to think about it all the time. In that mindset, one can imagine being fulfilled by one’s work, and in the moment they don’t feel satisfied they can buckle down and work hard, telling themselves they just haven’t “arrived” yet.

BUT, allow me to share with you a taste of the other sense, and how it comes with absolute freedom to embrace your calling, your unique design and the talents God’s given you, while going through every season of life in its good time, fulfilled whether or not in any season the “dream” comes to full fruition.

(side note - I’m using the words “dream” and “call” here somewhat interchangeably, which comes with the presumption that the “dream” has been submitted and discerned. Our deepest desires and dreams will be fulfilled in God (though most certainly in a deeper and more fulfilling way than we’ve dared to hope/are capable of comprehending - for which reason we must consider our dreams shallow and ask God to reveal the deeper need and desire we have.) Because of the shallowness, we ought not expect every hope and desire we have be answered in the initial way we thought of it, but with much prayer and aligning our hearts with the promises of God, we can expect our desires and dreams to be refined into real tangible things that are noble of pursuit. At this stage, a “call” in your life may well present itself as a dream or desire, because your deepest desire is for the Lord. What he invites you too will ignite your heart and be life-giving, a stepping stone on your journey towards him.)

But back to the main point -

In the second sense, “living out of a calling”, your call unfolds throughout your life, taking on different forms, drawing out different talents and skills, challenging you and growing you in different ways. Perhaps at one point you’ll find yourself embodying the call really obviously or practically - as in a career surrounding it. At other times you may have very little time to put whatever it is into practice, but it still captivates your heart and mind and is an important part of you, and you live it out in many small ways. The focus becomes not the call, but the pursuit of God and the transformation of your life into his image. That is the universal calling, to become the ‘Imago Dei’. In different seasons of my life I’ve seen parts of my personality grow and fade, different skills brought to the forefront, different lessons learned, different weaknesses exposed. I look back on each season with gratitude, not because each season has been enjoyable. Rather I look back with a deeper joy and sense of peace because I can see God's hand in each circumstance and receive it as a gift.

Life is the journey by which God makes of us a masterpiece, transforming us into his own image. And he places us right where we need to be for that transformation to happen, its simply up to us to embrace that time and the grace he gives in it.

It’s been most freeing to “live out of my calling”. You see, I have a theory that we sometimes take a look at our desires and talents and associate them with a very specific way of life so that those things can be explicitly lived out. For myself, I realized in college that certain passions of mine, such as beauty’s evangelistic potential, coupled with my talent for drawing and painting, along with other personality traits that make me vision-driven and entrepreneurial, all just seemed to point to an art career. Once I realized that, it was hard to separate the things that make me uniquely me from my idea of how that could practically play out. But by submitting that practical vision of an art career, and allowing God to place me in different circumstances in my life, I’ve been able to see how he continually both pours into me through those areas of my life, and gives me places to pour out through them, what a gift! By trusting him with our circumstances we’ll find we have many opportunities where we can pour out in way that gives life to the world and reciprocally fills us with the life of God.

I’m eager for this new season, and grateful for the practical ways I can embrace the desire to be an artist. But I’m even more grateful in advance for whatever work he’s up to in my life, and through my life. It all leads me back to a sense of deep wonder at the ways of God and his love for us. In all circumstances then, let us give thanks! (1 Thess. 5:18).