Using Art to Bless Your Family

I love when the kids pick wild flowers from the yard and bring them in to me. They give me a gift, that cost them nothing other than the time to pick it, and they are thanked for it. And rightly so: they noticed the beauty around them, they gathered it, and they couldn’t help to share it with me.

In my imagination, I do something just like that when I write.I see something beautiful or funny or important, I gather it up in words, and I share it with you. I love doing this thing, here on this blog, for my friends and for strangers.
It’s my hobby, my “other vocation,” my way of recharging and resting my mommy muscles for awhile. There is nothing wrong with this, but today, I am asking myself this question:
How can I use my art to serve my family?
And that’s one of those questions I ask myself and the ideas flood and I think I need to write for days just to get them all stamped down on the page before I get distracted with something else!
I won’t do that, but I will start a blog series so that I think on these things with you once a week. I am dedicating fridays to family-focused art. I’ll be dusting off the writing assignment the girls gave me (Sara and Clara) and I’ll be blogging about using creative energies in the home.
I’ll try my hand at children’s stories, and I’ll show you some of them, too. (Come back tomorrow!) I’d appreciate your thoughtful feedback. If you’d like to use them for experimenting on your own children, I’d love to hear what they think as well. These little people in my house are great story-testers, but I’m not sure they would tell me if my story was boring.
I would love to hear from you as well: how do you use your art to bless your family? Do you write to record memories? Do you garden, scrapbook, bake, craft, sew, or host parties? (Link up and guest posting opportunities coming soon!)
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;  and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.1 Corinthians 12:4-7