He has given us various ways to begin to feel the joy He feels.

He gave us artistic talents so that we can feel the joy of creating something beautiful, something awe-inspiring with our own hands.

He gave us words so that we can weave them together into stories, build universes, and create characters with extensive personalities.

He gave our bodies the miraculous ability to create and birth humans, allowing us to feel an unbreakable and impossible joy in their achievements and pain.

He gave us the ability to teach, inspire and care for others. He gave us the power to be the pavers of our own paths, to make choices every day, to build a life made up of so many various different activities and people.

He gave us the ability to believe that we are the masters of our own destiny.

He went so far as to take Himself out of the picture, to allow us to think that we are the ones creating the lives we have, forgetting that we are but characters in a storybook, a paintbrush in an artists hand, a body at the mercy of its mind.

To me, the reason He did all of this, despite the pain it must bring Him, is so that we can relate to Him. So that we could begin to imagine the magnitude of what He has done.

One who has never felt the joy of creating something all their own could not possibly understand how it aches to let it go, to allow others to criticize, adapt, and misunderstand their work.

G-d watches us do this each day, take His perfect handiwork and destroy it.

I constantly walk the tightrope of knowing that I’m not in charge, yet believing that I am. I constantly struggle to let go, to fall backward and allow life to happen to me, for the dangers of that seem to outweigh the benefits.

I watch the pot, achingly waiting for it to boil. I daydream and write my future story so clearly, I often worry I’ve ruined it for myself. I so desperately want to be the author of my own life, yet I am deeply aware that that would make for a terrifying reality.

I often wonder – what does G-d want from me?

Do I plant the seeds or do I stay away from the garden?

Do I raise the flame, or walk away from the kitchen?

Do I write in pen, or do I drop the pencil?

How do I find the balance between grabbing life by the horns, yet allowing life to follow its natural unfolding?

I take great joy in creating something new – a poem, a meal, a story.

I know that my abilities in creation are limited, much more limited than His.

Yet when I look at my life, and my heart aches to make life happen on my own, without waiting, without holding back, without watching the calendar turn pages, I turn to G-d and beg Him to allow me to hold the pencil.

Allow me to feel as if I am writing my story.

Allow Your plan and my dreams to collide, to leak into my life.

G-d, allow my dreams to come true.

For when they do, I’ll know without a doubt that I am only a character in Your story, only a sketch under Your pencil. I’ll know because only You know the intricacies of my brain, my soul, my heart. You handcraft my dreams just as You handcraft my reality.

You’ve given me the ability to create – now allow me the joy of taking life into my own hands and watching my dreams blossom from the seeds I plant, the water I boil, the life I live.

Blog Post: 47/52

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Featured Photo by Kowit Phothisan on Unsplash