The Paradox, Creativity, & Looking Back

“I can’t wait to grow up. I’ll be able to do all kinds of stuff and no adults can tell me what to do.”

“Could someone help me? I have no clue what I’m doing. I just want to be a kid again.”

Such is the paradox of life. When you’re young, all you can think about are your wants, goals, and desires for entering adulthood. Then you actually start getting old and realize all those cliches about not growing up too fast are true. It seeps in rather sinisterly until one day the figurative lightbulb goes off in your head and you realize you can never get that time back. It’s done. You’re an adult. You have responsibilities and there’s a ticking clock on the the things you’ve always wanted to accomplish. Deal with it.

These are the sorts of thoughts that pass through my mind as I look at another year that has passed in my life. It’s difficult not to dwell on the tasks you haven’t yet finished. But you can’t ignore them either.

So what does C. J. have on his mind? What vexes him days after his 26th birthday? What does he covet with more than a quarter of a century behind him?

Becoming a successful author. I’m not looking to become Mr. Mansion, but enough to live off would be great.
A wife and children. Ever since I was a kid I’ve thought about what it would be like to teach my own kids. To share with them. To see their shining faces. To light up my parents lives with grandchildren and a daughter-in-law. To love someone like no other person in my life. I want all of this.
To keep myself walking in the sight of Christ no matter what hardships may come. I never want to return to the pit of despair I once inhabited.

There are smaller, less meaningful things I want too, but those are by far my highest life priorities. They aren’t in order or rank, but they’re of the greatest importance.

Sometimes I struggle with my position in life. We all do.  But then I look at the wonderful creative world around me. I listen to the heartfelt beats of a person’s music and melodies. A director’s drive shines in his assembly of moving pictures and keen actors. A game developer grants players a playground to test their limits. An author bleeds ink onto a page or his fingers dance across a keyboard.

All of them express the wonder of our world, the hopes, dreams, and hopeless dreams of the nations. They – WE – have been endowed by their Creator with the talents to give voice to the world they inhabit.

I think, more than anything else, what gives me hope for my future is the knowledge that the Lord saw fit to give me – US – a hint, a whisper, a phantom of His image. He saw that we would have a profound need to express ourselves and granted us the barest reflection of his creative power.

I am a kid no longer, but I came to Him as a child. He is our Father. Come what may, His will be done, He has our best interests at heart.

Thus, I once more look forward to the future in His hands.

Merry Christmas. See you guys next time.