To Embrace a Limit

I have now reached the end of my season in grad school, and have now obtained a master's degree in art history. Education has, for now, fulfilled its purpose in helping me to hone my writing skill and my research interests. In spite of that, I can’t say I have a much clearer sense of God's Will For My Life or How Then Shall I Live.

But the deep callings of my heart, the giftings I've been given, remain the same as they've been since the edges of memory. I am an artist: a painter, a writer, a musician. I am talented but not prodigious in any of these avenues. The more I practice, the better I will become.

I think we can really peddle a lie to one another in saying that we can become whatever we like. It is true in theory: we can theoretically pursue any career path, theoretically live anywhere we like, theoretically adopt any personality trait. But in practice, as we attempt to unfold that theory in real life, I do not think it is true.

When I believe that I can do whatever I like, that my life is a tabula rasa controlled by me, I quickly become frustrated in my own inability to be all things to all people in all situations. Then jealousy arrives in— why am I not more this way, or that way? How does that person over there have this come so easily to him? And I have had my fair share of others expressing jealousy of me. How did I become so good at x, y, z? A question that feels pressing lingers below anyone’s story of success— how, and how exactly, did she do it? Can I replicate those actions, for the same results?

The things I am presently good at did not come about because of any particular work on my part, though I have had the privilege of being able to practice and learn about some of the the things I was already gifted at. But that's the thing: I was already gifted at them. Not particularly by my own hustle, and not by my own power. I am a small collection of both giftings and limitations. You are, too.

If I consider my limitations and giftings as things to be embraced, perhaps I can gain a clearer sense of how I can make the best use of my days as they unfold, mysterious before me. That is where this small corner of the Internet comes in. I think that the time has come for me to start sharing creative output, answering a calling that has been on my heart for much of my life: to name goodness, to create beauty, and to share truth. I am limited in what I can offer, but I will offer it still.

And I can embrace my own limitations most when I consider the body of Christ. I went out to the mountains a few months ago to celebrate my mother, and my brother and his wife came to visit from out of town. Hiking at the front of the line as my family walked a trail through the woods, behind me I overheard my father share stories and dreams and pieces of himself I'd never heard before, prompted by my sister-in-law's gentle questions. Our family was complete before she became a part of it, but somehow is more complete with her. She draws new and not-yet-spoken things out of the rest of us, things that we had not called forth from one another in the 23 years that we'd been a family of four without her.

I remember this, and consider how beautiful it is that I am limited in one way so that others' light can come through in a different way.

“But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body…
Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it."

—1 Corinthians 12:18-20, 27