Great Happiness!

A group of us were talking about the meaning of names, and I said, “My friends are always asking me what my name means, but in English names don’t have meanings.  They’re just names.”  One girl said that she knew of a website where the meaning of names can be researched.  So she looked up my name, Alisa, and said, “Great happiness!  Your name means great happiness in Hebrew!”  All the other girls said, “Yeah that fits you!”

Now, that blows my mind because all my life I’ve had the opposite spoken over me.  I was born on a Wednesday, so I was told “Wednesday’s child is full of woe.”  I believed it!  Depression has been a plague and a curse on my family—one which I recently broke.  I have suffered a couple of bouts of depression so severe that I slept only 1 or 2 hours a night for almost 3 months, and had suicidal thoughts and even suicidal hallucinations.  The longest period of depression lasted about 2 ½ years.

Once during a bout of severe depression I saw a funny clip on America’s Funniest Home Videos.  I laughed so hard that I couldn’t stop.  Then I began crying just as hysterically, thinking that surely this is the last time I will ever laugh.  It really alarmed my family, who had no idea how to help me.

Another time I literally felt something inside of me break at an unkind remark that I would normally have shrugged off.  After that, I passed entire days looking out the window and crying.  The sight of a bird flying by was enough to start me crying.

I don’t like having to depend on medication, but Prozac probably saved my life.  It didn’t make my life less painful, but it cushioned the pain enough to help me keep a grip and not act on those bad thoughts.  To be honest, all that feels like it was another life, a different person.

Nevertheless, despite the depression and the bad stuff in my life, I have always been able to remain mostly upbeat and positive.  Perhaps that is because even without knowing it, whenever anyone said my name, they were proclaiming great happiness to me without even knowing it.  Now that’s a great thought!

And now that I have truly surrendered all to God, I do have great happiness.  I never would have thought it possible—at least not in this life.

And here’s a fun thought, inspired by 6 year old Dave Junior: logic and chocolate do not go together.  Chocolate is not a great anti-depressant (the calories are unfortunate), but it does help some.  God is good!

Jazzed by That Creative Energy

Thanks to Laurie for the inspiration!

Have you ever noticed that it’s energizing and at the same time relaxing, fun, and fulfilling to create?  Time seems to fly by, and you may have even missed a meal when you’re fully engaged in creating something.  This applies to all creative pursuits:  visual (drawing, painting, sculpture, photographic, textile arts, ceramics, woodworking, etc.), musical, performing arts (acting, dancing, choreography, set design, etc.) graphic (computer-based artwork, design, PowerPoint, Photoshop, etc.), writing (mine), and any combination of the above, the list is truly endless.  I believe this is because when we’re creating we are doing the thing we were made to do.

Consider this:  we were made in the image of God—The Creator!  When we create, we are imitating our Father.  When we create, I believe that we make our Father proud of us.  That’s why it’s so rewarding to create.  What was the first job given to Adam?  Gardening.  Adam was the first landscaping designer.  Next God brought all the animals to Adam so that he could name them.  God could have named the animals, but he gave that task to Adam.

When we got a poodle puppy in 1965, Daddy named him Poodle-a-Go-Go.  Daddy’s pet names were all like that:  funny and clever.  When I was six years old, my parents let me name our cat.  I looked carefully at him and named him Fuzzy.  OK, not a spectacularly imaginative name, but I think I captured the essence of this long-haired tabby cat.  And my parents honored my lame name, calling the cat Fuzzy all the days of his life.

You may say that you’re not very creative or that you have no talent.  I say that you just haven’t found your creative niche yet.  Like me with naming pets when I was six.  Since we’re not God, it takes most of us some time to develop the skills and to perfect our creative talents.  Experiment!  Try different materials, methods, styles.  You’ll find yourself creatively, but you’ve got to be patient with yourself, too.  Above all, you’ve got to honor your creativity by spending time at it.  You can’t expect to improve if you never spend time at it.

Guess who is incapable of creating:  the devil.  That’s why he twists God’s perfect creation into something perverted, because he cannot create.  He (along with the rest of the angels) was not made in God’s image, only we were.  And because he’s jealous of our ability to create, the devil tries to fool us into thinking that creative pursuits are a waste of time, that we should spend our time working at a “real job.”  The devil wants you to believe that you must work hard to get anywhere in this world.  But you want to know the truth?  They say do what you love and the money will come.  I believe that’s true because what humans love to do is create.  God honors that—especially when we use our creative abilities to honor Him.

The truth is that there is plenty of room in God’s Kingdom for creative pursuits.

So you go to town with that creative thing!  Joyfully play (not work) at your creative art.  Make our Father proud!