Connecting to The Creator While Creating
Can you connect to God while doing creative things? Here are some ideas of how you can unplug from stress and connect with God and your inner creative self.
Episode Discussion Points
Connecting with God can help us when we are feeling drained by life’s challenges.
Comparison to plugging a phone in when you need to recharge.
God the Father is the ultimate Creator, and we each have this seed of divine creativity within us.
“As we tap into our own creativity, we are connecting to God.”
When we are feeling worn out and exhausted, often doing something creative energizes us.
Ex: doodling on a page, creative cooking, sculpture/play-dough, music, science, cooking, building, dancing, decorating, digital creation etc.
God is the Master-Creator, and we are his crowning creation
He helps sculpt our lives to reach our biggest and best potential
Don’t compare your creative abilities to another’s.
There are gifts and talents that only you can bring into the world.
As we tap into our creativity, we tap into our potential, and we can connect with God, our Father and Creator.
How I feel when I connect to God as an author and feel the words flowing from Him through me onto the page.
Set a goal and reaching it is an act of creation.
Creativity Categories
Visual Arts—paint, sculpt, draw
Musical Abilities—composing, playing instruments, singing
Science—Learning about chemical reactions, cooking
Physical Creation—Build things, sew, dance, decorate home,
Digital Creation—Coding, audio, video
“The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” ~Michelangelo
Invitation
Make time today or a day this week to create or do one of your hobbies—and watch to see if that helps you feel happier and have increased connection with God.
Download the 7 Ways to Increase Connection with God below
#tamarakanderson #storiesofhopeinhardtimes #podcast #hope #God #hardtimes #creativity #visual arts #musicalarts #physicalcreation #cooking #writing
Transcription
You can find the transcription of today's episode here: Tamara Anderson 0:02
Have you ever created something and felt a joy and a connection to God? Today we are going to talk a little bit about creation and different ideas of things that you can do to help calm you down, pull you away from the craziness of life, and connects you to God so that you feel stronger and better, like you can do anything. So stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 0:30
Welcome to Stories of Hope in Hard Times, the show that explores how people endure and even thrive in difficult times, all with God's help. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson. Join me on a journey to find inspiring stories of hope and wisdom learned in life's hardest moments.
Tamara Anderson 0:54
Hello, and welcome to another episode of Tamara's takeaways on the stories of hope in hard times podcast. I'm your host Tamara K Anderson. And thank you for joining me today, I'm so excited to be talking to you about connecting with God. This is truly one of the ways that we can feel strengthened by him as we connect him because often, you and I are faced with challenges on a daily basis, either ourselves or for those we love, that are weighty. And they kind of drain us a little bit.
Tamara Anderson 1:25
And so as we connect with God, I want you to picture right now, if you're feeling drained, connecting to a power source, like when you're when your phone is out of battery, you need to connect to a power source. So constant connection with God is like plugging your phone in every day. So last time, we talked about devotionals. So praying and meditating, and reading our scriptures, that is a great way to plug in to God's power. We also talked in about the power of nature, and connecting with God through nature.
Tamara Anderson 2:00
And today, we're going to talk about other ways that we can connect with God and feel rejuvenated. So the first one is, on my list of seven ways to increase your connection with God, you can go and get this infographic on my website on the show notes of today's show. Tamarakanderson.com. And so we talked about devotional and nature. And today, we're talking about the third one creating, and you're going wait, what?
Tamara Anderson 2:28
So I want you to pause and remember that God, our Father created this marvelous Earth, this universe, He is the best creator. And we as his children have that seed of creativity within each of us, each of us can be creative in a different way. And as we tap into our own creativity, we are connecting to God as our Father, I know that there have been times in my life when I've been stressed, and exhausted and worn out. And sometimes just taking a break from the stress and creating something. Now, sometimes it could be as simple as sketching doodles on a page, or, I know you're gonna sit think this is crazy. But sometimes me making a new recipe and creating a new recipe for my family has actually helped me kind of back out of the stress and do something that I enjoy. I know not everybody enjoys cooking, but it does happen to be something that I really do enjoy, especially when I'm using my creative abilities to do that.
Tamara Anderson 3:35
So I love the idea of using our creative talents to tap into kind of truly who we are as children of God and sons and daughters of the Great Creator. And so today, I want to talk quickly about ways that we can connect to him through creating. But the first thing is visual art. Now, some people are amazing at this visual arts. They're great artists, they can paint they can sculpture, they can draw, it's it's amazing to see what some people can do. So when was the last time you sat down and doodle or drew or did something like that? Was it recent? Do you feel like now you're an adult, you have to have like a certain level of proficiency to be able to use these talents. I don't know about you. But I've been to some pretty amazing I think they call them paint classes where you paint something and I have had so much fun those paint classes and the people that are generally aren't taking themselves very serious. They're just painting for the fun of it. And I found it to be so fun.
Tamara Anderson 4:42
And I have a friend who draws digitally now like on her iPad, and I find that fascinating. I think it's so incredible. The many ways that we can create or when was the last time you sat down with some colored pencils or some crayons? Oh my goodness, you guys it's been A long time, I think when my kids were little, I used to do all these little art projects. And I haven't done them now that they've gotten older. But I found that when I open a pack of crayons, just the smell alone triggers like a happy relaxation. And me maybe because I think back to my childhood days of creating, but I think that is so neat that we can use these creative abilities, whether we're amazing at them or not, to just create and draw, I mean, their stuff. They have things like art therapy now. So creating and doing pictures or drawing your mood can be helpful.
Tamara Anderson 5:39
Or when was the last time you sculptured with Play dough even. Have you ever wanted to take the sculpture class? I noticed that I have a sculpture place, that's probably about 10 minutes from my house, and oh, my goodness, I want to take one of those classes, I want to take an art class too. But I think so many times as adults, we're so exhausted by the end of the day that we don't want to do any of these things. But they have classes you can take from the walls of your own home nowadays. So you can take a class online and learn how to paint, draw, sculpt, anything like that, try it.
Tamara Anderson 6:15
And we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, I'm going to share with you another couple of ways that we can connect with God before we wrap it up. Stay tuned.
Tamara Anderson 6:26
Hey my friends, it's tamarakanderson, and I need your help. I am gearing up for a wonderful Christmas season this year. And I need your stories to be part of it. I'm launching a new part on my podcast that I'm going to start doing every holiday season called Holiday Stories of Hope. And so I would love to hear your stories that you and your family have had happened to you during the holidays that have inspired hope in Christ hope in your family--stories that perhaps you've passed down for generations. Or perhaps it's something that's happened to you personally. So if you have a story you would love to share. If you wouldn't mind coming on a zoom call with me and recording it, we can do it in 5, 10, 15 minutes. And then I will be sharing that this November and December with my audience so that we can all be inspired by your story of hope.
Tamara Anderson 7:25
If you're interested, go to my website, Tamara K anderson.com, and go to contact me and reach out to me that way, and we'll get something set up. Alright guys, thanks for being such great supporters. And I look forward to sharing more of your stories of hope.
Tamara Anderson 7:44
Other people are super gifted in musical abilities. So creating great works of music or composing on a cello or viola or a trumpet, or a piano, or whatever it is. Some people express themselves through music, singing, perhaps I have several of my kids that really really love creating things with music. One that took the piano almost instantly when he was really little, several others who have sung in choirs. And when they're standing up on stage performing, it's almost like they come alive, it's pretty amazing to watch how when you're in your element, this is part of who you truly are. And you feel you feel that connection, you feel that joy of creation. And it's pretty amazing.
Tamara Anderson 8:38
I have a couple of other of my kids who have participated in a bell choir. And that's where you ring either really, really big bells or really, really little bells. And that's fun, too. So those are different ways that you can create with music. And sometimes you're creating a group. So you're not only connecting with God, but you're also connecting with other people. And that's pretty neat, too. That is those are all beautiful ways to create.
Tamara Anderson 9:03
But also there are ways create through science. So I want you to pause and think of people who are chemical engineers, and they're figuring out all these different chemicals that God has blessed us with on the earth. And they're figuring out how they combine together and what they make and how that's really cool. And so that can be it. You know, cooking is science too. And combining ingredients that that is creativity right there. I know I've had times looked at several different recipes online and say, Well, I liked this about this recipe and I liked this about this recipe. And I only have a couple of the ingredients of this recipe and so I'll kind of shuffle them together and make a new concoction that is similar to all three but I'm creating my own and so sometimes Cooking Can Be creative.
Tamara Anderson 9:54
And then there are people who create physically so maybe they build buildings or carve chairs, or they sew, or they dance, physically dancing and stuff like that. Another way that you can physically create is maybe decorating a home, whether it's building something, maybe you imagine putting a wall up here or totally changing a headboard. Or maybe it is making a focal wall, or maybe it is changing some tile out in your home. Or I know we, our first home was a total fixer upper. And so we had to like start from almost scratch and put flooring in and paint the walls. And so that can be physical creation, too. And when you're creating like that, it's so neat to see something go from a before to and after. Because you're like, Oh, my goodness, look what I've done.
Tamara Anderson 10:52
And you there's a sense of pride and accomplishment, there and expressing that creativity can also bring us joy. And that's what God wants us to have. He wants us to experience joy as we create.
Tamara Anderson 11:06
I have another son who is really, really great at digital stuff, and computers. And there are ways to create code. And I don't know everything that you can create online. But I know that there are also people who are great at creating videos, and my husband is one of those people who loves to create videos. I do it as part of a necessity of my podcast. And I do I'm so excited when it's done. But it's not something that I like, absolutely love. So this, this is a labor of love for me, creating the audio and video. I've had to learn to do it. But it's not my favorite thing. But there are so many different ways that we can create. And it's just amazing to see how different people create differently.
Tamara Anderson 11:54
And also, in the act of creation, just be aware that some things draw us to God. And some things don't. I know that there's music out there, for example, that probably distances you from God with a whole bunch of swearing and stuff like that. So just be aware that some things draw us closer to God. And some things take us farther away. If you're watching movies that aren't very uplifting, they're going to take you farther away from God. So be careful when you're in the creation process, that you're creating things that draw you closer to God and connect you to him, instead of drawing you away from him. Because the the opposite can also be true.
Tamara Anderson 12:38
I love this quote by Pope Francis, he said even the weakest and most vulnerable, the sick, the old, the unborn, and the poor are masterpieces of God's creation, made in His own image destined to live forever and deserving of the utmost reverence and respect. So I love that that speaks that we are some of God's most grand creations. And that as we his creations, tap into our creative abilities, we can work miracles, I was thinking the other day about the ability that we have to set a goal and reach it to envision it in our minds. And I think that is also the creative process of imagining a better, bigger future for ourselves and working to that, creating things to make that come to pass.
Tamara Anderson 13:29
And I think God works in much the same way he takes people like you and me who are kind of like Rob pieces of clay and he pulls off a little piece there and a little piece there. He sees what we can become. And he creates us into this amazing, amazing thing. 10 years, 20 years, 50 years down the road that we look back on our lives and go, I did not know that this was in me. But he did. He knew it all along. And so I think as we use our creative abilities, we see that we can reach things that we can make things that we can change and evolve and become. And I think that's beautiful and powerful.
Tamara Anderson 14:09
I have a couple of other quotes that I'd love to share with you about creativity. Artist Michelangelo once said, The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection. And what I think he meant by that is that as we create it's like a shadow of everything that God has created. It's it's kind of like we are acting on that creative ability that is Divine within each of us.
Tamara Anderson 14:45
Brene Brown also said that we need to remember to not compare ourselves to other people. She said this we must care for and nurture the stories we tell ourselves about our creativity and ability just because we didn't measure up to some stuff 100 have achievement doesn't mean that we don't possess gifts and talents that only we can bring to the world. Just because someone failed to see the value and what we can create or achieved doesn't change its worth, or ours. And I think I've had to learn a little bit more about how each of us have unique gifts and abilities as I've watched, especially my son's who are on the autism spectrum and grow and progress in their unique abilities.
Tamara Anderson 15:28
And Nathan, for example, who is very minimally verbal, he can create such beautiful puzzles so quickly. So amazingly, he has almost a perfect pitch and memory for music. And so he'll seeing all the time as he's jumping through the house, or sitting on the couch or something like that. And so sometimes our gifts and talents are unique to each of us. He's also really great with Word Search and word finds, and if you ever play like a hangman, or a wheel of fortune game with him, he will probably win because he sees patterns and words and letters that you and I don't see usually. So even he has ways that he can use his creativity on a daily basis. And it's pretty amazing to see. So each of us are going to have unique gifts and talents. Some of us may be computer programmers, and that is the way we create others of us may be in the arts. And that is an amazing way we can create. But as we tap into this creativity, we tap into our potential as children of God, and we connect with him. And we can draw peace and strength and creativity from him.
Tamara Anderson 16:42
I know that as a writer, one of my greatest joys is when I am able to kind of close myself into a room and write. And often I feel that there are times when I feel like the story is just flowing. And it's not because I feel like I'm doing it, I often feel like it's coming straight from God, through me and onto the page. And I love those moments when I feel connected to God, and I feel him helping me create. It's a beautiful experience. And I've also experienced that as I've written a couple of songs. And it's it's a crazy feeling to feel that connection with God and to feel that creative part of myself, kind of acting like a window, a window from God, through me to you. And I love that. I'm also creating every time I podcast. So thank you for listening.
Tamara Anderson 17:43
All right, so creating and using our creative abilities is an awesome way to connect with God. So what are your big takeaways from today, we talked about creating. And so today, I'd love to invite you to take time out of your day today or sometime this week, where you can do a hobby of yours, where you can create and see if that helps increase your happiness, and your connection to God. Thank you so much for joining me today we have several more things on our seven ways to connect with God that I'm going to be sharing with you over the next few Tamara's takeaways. So stay tuned for those. Thanks for joining me today and hope on.
Tamara Anderson 18:28
Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's show. If you like what you heard, subscribe so you can get your weekly dose of powerful stories of hope. I know there are many of you out there who are going through a hard time and I hope you found useful things that you can apply to your own life in today's podcast. If you'd like to access the show notes of today's show, please visit my website stories of hope podcast.com. There you will find a summary of today's show the transcript and one of my favorite takeaways. You know, if someone kept coming to mind during today's episode, perhaps that means that you should share this episode with them. Maybe there was a story shared her quote or a scripture verse that they really really need to hear. So go ahead and share this podcast. May God bless you, especially if you are struggling with hope to carry on and have the strength to keep going. When things get tough. Remember to walk with Christ and He will help you bear the burden. And above all else Remember God loves you.
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