My eighth grade English teacher once asked in class, “Why do you create?” A simple question, really, but it has stuck with me throughout the years. At the time, I remember thinking, “Because that’s what I enjoy doing,” and I moved on. It wasn’t until I was a little older that I began to process why I enjoy creating, and the answer is truly mind-blowing.
Even from a very young age, I have found joy in creating things. When I was 5 years old, I had been writing little nonsense stories for quite some time and felt like an accomplished expert writer. I clearly remember the pride I felt when I moved up to the next level: the first time I typed and printed out a story to hang on the fridge. It featured an argument in which one of the characters yelled "NO’," and I later explained to my mom that the apostrophe seemed like an angrier punctuation mark to me. So as someone who has always felt emotionally connected to punctuation, it doesn’t surprise me that writing is one of the things in life I enjoy most.
When faced with the question at 12 years old, it made sense to me that creating is just what I do; it’s a part of who I am. I write because I feel compelled to. I wouldn’t quite feel like the same person if I could never write again. I feel most satisfied giving life to the daydreams in my head. I create worlds entirely different from our own and fill them with characters—personalities that only I can get to know until I transfer their essences to paper and they begin to take shape as people, taking on the challenges and mysteries of their interesting new lives. Where else can you create a world in which incredible stories can be born? I don’t know how else to explain the satisfaction that comes from creating something beautiful.
Writing gives me a sense of purpose. As I was thinking this through more thoroughly, that was the word that caused me to start to put it together, even at a young age. There are so many lost humans in the world just searching for some sense of purpose, because ultimately, we are broken and in need of something to fulfill us. The universal human quest is really a damaged people crying out for God because our purpose is to glorify him throughout our lives. For me, perhaps, that’s through writing.
We are people in desperate need of God, and that deep desire manifests itself through us as we imitate our creator. We were made imago dei, in the image of God, so of course creativity exists not only in the world but also in us, his creations. Through the Bible, we know that we are his workmanship and that every good and perfect gift is from him. We often look up to amazing artists who have an abundance of talent and originality. How much more mind-blowing is our God, who created every aspect of life and blessed us with our own sense of creativity?
I create because it’s what I enjoy doing. But it’s so much more than that: I enjoy creating because it’s a way to glorify God, the ultimate satisfaction, and a way to imitate my infinitely imaginative creator.
