When My Heart Sings, Guest Post by Brenda Leyland

"Work on projects

that make your heart sing."

Lady Bird Johnson

Lady Bird’s sage advice has been a touchstone in my life for several decades now. I'd often refer to her words—they were a gauge in any given situation or project. I didn’t always heed her words, to my detriment, but I came to realize when the joy left, when the song in my heart dried up, it was a clear indicator something was out of order. I needed to let it go, change it, or move on. The joy of the Lord is my strength and without his joy, my life's motivation goes out the window. Fullness of joy, or the lack of it, helps me know when I'm in the right space. It’s been a key way the Lord has guided my times and seasons.

It's that way with my writing. If a writing project pulls downward and I don’t feel a quickening in my spirit while working on it, it’s probably not a fit for me. So, what writing projects have made my heart sing?

My blog It’s A Beautiful Life is my happy place. Here I share my love for what’s beautiful and wondrous in the everyday world around us. Ever watching for glimpses of heaven in unexpected places, and when the ugly stuff is too much in our faces, I write to remind myself and others not to lose heart, not to lose sight of all that still makes our lives beautiful. If you saw my post last month, you know my heart also sings when I write handwritten notes to lift hearts, not to mention create bright spots in mailboxes stuffed with junk mail. Years ago, I had the great delight to create a monthly newsletter for consultants in the beauty industry. The Director who hired me wanted a newsletter that wasn’t only about selling product, she wanted something beautiful to inspire her team members. More recently, there's the Christmas! magazine I created and published via Blurb. Written mainly to house my cherished childhood memories of the season, it was pure delight to work on. And what a thrill to hear from readers and friends of friends expressing how my stories brought to mind their own treasured memories.

I am happiest when I can convey the beauty of God through my writing to a broken world. Helping others remember what remains sweet and beautiful beyond the pain, sorrow, and loss: ‘beauty, food and friendship, reservoirs of love and understanding’, to borrow a phrase from novelist Rosamunde Pilcher.

As a young woman, it took me years to discern what made my heart leap for joy and what I felt most passionate about. I felt the joy well up inside when I realized, at the very core, it was Beauty that made me feel the most alive. It touches something on the inside that nothing else does. The wonderment can come in wide-open skies and flowers spilling over garden paths. It manifests in glorious colours, gorgeous sentences, and spine-tingling music. It catches my delight in slices of moist chocolate cake and makes my heart squeeze with love to catch sight of peaceful faces of people asleep...even complete strangers. The list is endless. When the mystery of the beautiful stirs me, I am fully alive, and I long to share the joy of it.

Wondering if it was okay to just follow my heart, and I did wonder a lot about it in my youth, I came to see that Beauty is important to the Lord. The Psalmist reminds us to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness Ps 96:9. He beautifies the humble with salvation Ps 150:4. He longs for us to be joyful in the glory and beauty which He confers upon us Ps 150:5. In Genesis, we are told the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight or to be desired for food—the cherry blossom trees certainly bear witness to this. And in Ecclesiastes, we’re reminded He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Our eyes and souls are designed to appreciate beauty, to need beauty, like we need air and food and sunshine. I eventually came to see, and rest in it, that I could let my heart truly enjoy this great gift God has given to us earth dwellers. And to bring this love and joy of Beauty with me in whatever I do, wherever I go, whoever I see. Letting it spill into my writing.

That's what makes my heart sing. And when I write on these things, I feel His pleasure.

Top Photo: Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Inspired by the beauty of God's world around her, Brenda Leyland happily writes from her home in northerly Alberta, Canada. She writes on her blog It's A Beautiful Life and Facebook page.

Not a Plan in Sight by Joylene M Bailey

 

Portrait painters captivate me. Maybe it's because I'm not a portrait artist, but I could watch them do their thing for hours. With some artists, the image they're creating is recognizable almost immediately. That's definitely the sitter's eye, her chin, her hair. The plan is clear, the method ... well, methodical. Deliberate.

Then there are other artists who seem to slop their canvases with a mash of bright or monochromatic colours. Completely unrecognizable as a portrait. When asked at this point in the project, I've heard some of these artists say they hope a discernible resemblance eventually materializes. Indeed, as they work, pushing the paint around in sweeps and flourishes and straight lines, a likeness does begin to emerge, rising from the depths to amaze me every time. One tiny brush stroke can change a painting completely. Was that the plan all along? Or did it surprise the artist too?

*****

What writing projects make my heart sing?

I had to think about this question for a long time. I love to write all kinds of things: children's songs and stories, adult fiction, poetry and rhymes, vignettes and scenes for a novel, my blog posts. Sometimes the project makes my heart sing and sometimes it doesn't. And it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the genre. What is it about each of these writing ventures that brings a thrill. And what makes it feel offkey? 

As I dug deeper I slowly came to realize that my heart sings when I write with no plan. When I let myself go, tap into that je ne sais quoi, and let the story materialize through my fingers somehow. That's it. That's when my heart soars.

One of my favourite stories came out of a prompt given at our writers' group meeting. The prompt was simply: Hello. What grew from there was a whimsical children's story that still makes me giggle every time I read it. Maybe it's only fit to read to the grandchildren, but what a delight it was to write it. And I imagine God delighting in my delight, like I take joy in the joy of my grandchildren.

A keynote speaker and author I once heard at a writing conference called himself an intuitive writer. He related how, during the writing of one of his novels, an essential character decided to get up and leave the book three-quarters of the way in. It completely changed the trajectory of the story.

I LOVE THAT!!

I love the unpredictability and the surprise. Just when you think you're going one way, something happens to make the story change. It's unexpected, and brilliant as a firework. Like the one tiny brush stroke that completely changes a portrait.

Maybe you are a planner. You enjoy the outlines and the method. Like the methodical painter, your portraits are beautiful and full of wonderful details that delight your Creator.

Or maybe your heart sings when you have no plan and no boundaries. You too delight your Creator with your unique, surprising, and beautiful portraits. 

I think we are all one-of-a-kind creations of our Creator, created to create works of art for His glory, His delight, His purpose. And how wonderful to be able to do it in a way that makes our hearts sing.    

~~~~~

Photo by Pixabay

Today Joy writes from her home in Edmonton, where she will be living for nine more days before moving with The Cowboy to their new home in the country. You can find her Joy-infused view of the world at Scraps of Joy.