Ash...now where am I...

So here I am in Swift Current, SK. Every weekend I'm travelling somewhere and I wish so badly that I could just sit somewhere and be at home. My body feels so disconnected from my heart. I realized today that I havn't really had any alone time in like 2 weeks. I'm also so busy these days that I don't even know how to manage my time effectively. LifeForce starts in one week and I still have so much to prepare before then. You know what though, I really shouldn't complain because there is alot of really great things in my life. Every Tuesday and Thursday we have leadership classes at LifeForce and this last Tuesday Pastor Lorne Tebbutt came in to teach on servant leadership. The class started off with Pastor Lorne asking each of us about our experience with leadership (with our parents, pastors, police, etc) and how we would rate the experience on a scale of one to ten. My rating wasn't really appropriate because the contradictory leadership I've experienced with one end being the lack of parents growing up, and the excellent Christian mentors later on. However in the middle of my story, Pastor Lorne injected with a really random question: "Do you spend time being creative?" We weren't talking about anything even remotely related to art or creativity or anything and everybody kind of looked at me strangly. I was sure I heard him wrong so I asked him if he could repeat the question. He repeated the same question and just sat there looking at me. Nobody in the room knows that I write or draw or anything like that. I am most definitely a closet artist as most of you reading this know. So I told Pastor Lorne "no", and he asked me why. I told him that the answer I give other people and myself is that I don't have enough time, but that the truth was that I really am afraid that I'm not good enough and that I'll just be judged by others and by myself. It was the funniest moment, because just that morning me and Jesus had been discussing why I hadn't been writing lately and I told Him that I was just busy. Pastor Lorne then began to prophesy and encourage me. He told me that he gave me permission to be creative and that it was wrong of me to not use the gifts that God has given me. He told me that I need to bring my closet worship into the open and not be afraid to sing or dance and write and draw out in worship before community. It was a crazy moment. So that night I went home and began to draw again. It had been quite a while but it felt so releasing to be moving that pencil across the paper. So even today while I sit in Swift or in the absolute busyness of next week, I am so content because I have truly worshipped the Lord with the gifts that He has birthed in me. I'm definitely still working through feeling confident to share my "creations" with others but it really has been a cool thing Jesus is doing with me in this area. Also like the day after this whole thing happened, my amazing friend Katie emailed and asked me to draw something for her so I've started working on this piece for her that I actually really love. It's cool to be able to think of her and pray for her, really to seek the heart of Jesus for her, and then see how that manifests itself on paper. Anyways yeah, that's where I'm at today.

What gifts has the Lord given you to use to worship Him? Are you using them? If no, why not?