“There are seasons when it simply isn’t possible to pull away to feed the artist confined inside. But take heart, the pendulum of the clock always swings back again.” Living out Life Creative is part of living as the woman God made me to be. In fact, I would say one of the essential threads of womanhood is that of creativity expressed in some form or a few. When Wendi Speake and Kelli Stuart shared about their upcoming book project they were authoring together, I thought it sounded like a great book for young moms who might feel like their expressive, artistic, innovative side was put on hold for motherhood. And it is. Life Creative: Inspiration for Today’s Renaissance Mom is just that. But I have been delightfully surprised at the cold drink this new book has been to my thirsty spirit.
One of the sweet holdovers in my new life design has been a place on two teams of women who write about God’s hopeful truth for moms. I “met” Wendy and Kelli on The MOB Society, and I’ve loved watching them parent kiddos and craft their homes through our virtual and visual connections. I celebrated when Kregel released their first joint effort, but I cried tears of gratitude when I realized it’s not just for young moms. It’s also for this mom.
Life Creative also speaks to this mom, who set aside things like regular blogging and book proposals and decorating, so she can muster up daily God-given strength to do a new thing in this season as the director of a Head Start program that covers more land than the state of Maryland. Today it felt really big. And while new things are good, I find myself grieving things I set aside. I miss them. I found comfort in the truth-filled, restorative words written by my two artful friends in Life Creative.
Sometimes moms set things aside, good things, in order to embrace other things. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sometimes it’s truly painful, even confusing, but we make the sacrifice. And in the doing, we wonder if our creativity couldn’t come out in some other medium, or if it will die, or if it was ever realistic to hang on to it. “You can’t stop and answer the creative call that tugs at your heart, and so you set it aside, and you wait, and as you do you pray that the inspiration will be waiting for you too.”
Wendy and Kelli write in fifteen chapters laced with scripture and dappled with real stories, honest admissions, and carefully crafted sentences that send me reaching for my highlighter. I love books like that. Like this one. They use modern day women as examples, but they’re not afraid to pull from the past. In chapters with titles like, “The Art of Home” and “Renaissance Faire,” they rekindle a mother’s belief that she can be both mother and creative, but my favorite chapter is “Our Most Beautiful Creations.”
This is a guide for moms to live an inspired life in which we can make beauty in ordinary circumstances. Truly, “Each page reveals how creativity and motherhood can combine to reveal the glory of God.” It’s not hard to see our often ugly world, but God has gifted women to restore beauty through creativity in and out of home.
If you’re a new mom, a mom of young children, a mom with adolescents, or a mom within view of the empty nest years, Life Creative will inspire and ignite your creativity. This would make an encouraging gift, and you can find your own copy of Life Creative here.
- Get to know Wendy at her blog home where she writes from the West Coast. (Love her amazing orange couch!)
- You can meet Kelli here, but she lives in Florida (That’s where she manages the antics of her 4 in-house kiddos and loves her Ukranian daughter from afar.)
- And we write together here on the MOB Society, which is where I was blessed to meet these two creative friends who also happen to be moms and writers.
