The Ultimate in Creativity

 Happy Friday, y'all!

Last month, my best-friend-I've-known-since-I-was-ten had a big ol' birthday. We live ten hours apart now, so we don't get to see each other often, and yeah, it stinks. So, as a surprise, her husband sent us to Disney World so we could hang out for a weekend together at the Animal Kingdom Lodge. Okay, for real... I did not know this place existed, and I am so glad that he was generous enough to include me.  I mean... wow.  

We spent our whole first evening there wandering around the two main buildings, inside and outside, looking at the wildlife that just walked around right under our noses. I won't lie, y'all. I wanted to see a giraffe more than just about anything in the world.  And I did! I was so excited! 

That picture isn't zoomed. That giraffe was right there! And he wasn't the only one. There were wildebeests, ostriches, so many kinds of cattle, gazelles, zebras, storks, cranes, pelicans... and dozens of other very cool creatures that do not live in my backyard. We were just amazed and kept pointing over here, over there... There was something new at every turn! 

At one point, we were standing on a balcony watching a bunch of animals I couldn't even pronounce meander around and we started to wonder... Why would God make so many different creatures?  What was going through His mind when He made a cow with humongous horns? A flamingo with such ridiculously long legs and neck? And then we looked at the zebra and the giraffe and a few other animals we couldn't name, and we decided that God just started with a horse and went, "If I stretch this or shorten that, I've got something different!" (I mean, think about it... Isn't a giraffe kind of like a horse with a super long neck and legs?)

We decided that God is pretty awesome. He could have tossed us onto a great big ball of goo and told us to have a nice day. But He didn't. He just unleashed this amazing creativity out there for us to marvel in and to enjoy. I think that's awesome. From that moment on, every animal I saw was like a love letter from a God who felt kind of like a father going, "Look! Do you see that one? Isn't it cool?"

And here's the fun part... we get to participate in creativity as well! Authors get to work with God to make things out of words. Painters make paintings. Photographers craft photos. Scrapbookers make beautiful albums. Musicians make music. Big or small, we all get to take part in the creative in one way or another, even if we don't recognize it at first. I love that God loves us so much that He lets us work right there beside Him. That's a special kind of love.

I think it's pretty awesome that God lets us enjoy what His limitless imagination designed and that He also lets us take part!

So, what do you do to be creative? It can be something big or small.  (I'll be honest, outside of writing, I'm not very artsy or creative, but I do enjoy taking photos of sunrise and sunset. That's creative, too.)  Comment below and, on Tuesday, September 2, I'll choose a random comment to win a copy of one of my backlist books!