“For this reason I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline” 2 Timothy 6-7

Last year, my daughter gave me a beautiful orchid with cascading purple and white blooms. I carefully followed the watering instructions and it held its blooms for quite a while. Then one day the last bloom fell off the stalk and slowly the stock began to wither and brown. But I kept watering it faithfully because I had researched it and found out that orchids have to go dormant for a while but to keep watering it as prescribed. The other day, I broke off the withered stem and began to notice that at the center of the two leaves were new leaves and that a green root-looking stem had begun to grow longer. I believe it is about to regain itself over the next few weeks or months and I will have fresh blooms. 

Over the past couple of months, I have been regrouping myself. I took careful actions before the New Year to assess my life, my goals, my dreams and my actions. I made decided steps to activate some things that have been lying dormant for some time. I am not sure when or why or how, but over the last ten months, it seems like my life was moving in a direction that I had little control over though I had a strong desire to be doing things like writing here and in other places. I had some relatively minor health issues that slowed me down, but I can’t blame my dormancy on that. I had a milestone birthday (hence the orchid) that quite honestly both excited me and also gave me a serious reality check, but I can’t blame my dormancy on that. I had some rather good times over the last ten months filled with friends and family and laughter, but I can’t blame my dormancy on that either. The desire to create, to write, to be vibrant was within me, but it just seemed like I couldn’t stay focused on anything for very long. It was becoming a bit irritating to me to know that I have so much within me still to do but my mind and sometimes my body just couldn’t get moving to do those things.

Part of my action steps has been to designate regular time in my studio space, “My Create Space”, even if it was just to look at books and articles, to doodle or reorganize my supplies. Today, I opened up this blog website, just to look at it and figure out what I am doing and what my next steps would be. I was rather shocked to see that I had not posted anything for a very long time. In fact, when I reviewed my stats, I realized I have had multiple periods of writing regularly then falling off but this is the longest break. At that precise moment, I was reminded of my dormant orchid and Paul’s word to Timothy above almost simultaneously. The orchid needs periods of rest in order to regenerate and expel the energy it takes to push forth another beautiful stem of cascading flowers. My weekly watering habits were keeping the orchid alive and while the flower stem withered and died, the plant itself is still a lush green with tiny new bright green leaves peeking from the center. 

Creativity is a gift from God that He graced me with. It needs periods of rest for productivity. However, without proper care, rest turns into dormancy and dormancy left unattended can lead to death. Paul gives me and us the prescription for those moments in our lives when it seems nothing is happening, nothing is changing. We cannot rely on others to come along and “water” us. We are encouraged to stir up the gifts within us. For me, it is taking the small steps I have taken, of just showing up on a regular basis in the atmosphere where I am most likely to feel my creative juices flowing. And if the reasoning for my dormancy is based in fear of failure, not being accepted or doubts that this gift is real, then Paul forcefully reminds me that God did not give me that kind of spirit but of power and of love and of self-discipline (sound mind, KJV). 

My dreams, hopes and goals are not dead. They may have been lying dormant for awhile and this is one of my steps to stir myself up again, to “water” myself. I may have been dormant, but not dead.