May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him. ~Romans 15:13 

I am a fairly organized person. I was raised by an everything in its place mother. And if you came to my house you would say that I keep it looking ready for company. That being said, if you were to come into my office/craft space/guest rooms, you would wonder if the same person owned both. You see, my office looks like someone with ADD had a party.  The whole space is like a collage of who I am.

Just to give you a visual picture: the efficiency kitchen counter is covered with beach glass in piles that are in the process of being sorted by color. I have stacked Pop-Up book ideas on the bed, the coffee table is buried beneath my Bible and my journal, the kitchenette table is hidden by notes, articles and how-to pages for the classes I teach on writing, and next to my desk are piles collected for writing projects that I have in the works. Right now those mounds would be a stack of pirate books, and rewrites, a heap of bug books and manuscripts, and a mountain of picture books that include math concepts.  

My husband seldom ventures up to my office. He doesn’t like the piles of clutter. I know my mother would be appalled. But you see, she shouldn’t be, because I do have everything in its place, my office. It is my place to create art and to build stories. This space is solely mine. I think creative people need a place to let their creativity flow, unencumbered by the worry of piles.

So if you are an artist, or a writer, or a musician, find a place, or a space where you are free to express your thoughts and actions away from anyone else’s prying eyes or judgment of the loot you have collected to encourage the creative juices. And if you are thinking, “I don’t have a guest/craft/office space,” I just want you to know that my first office, back in 1985, was in my infant’s bedroom closet with a homemade desk and chair underneath her foo-foo dresses. And, yes, under the desk was a pile or more.

Each one should use whatever gift he has received. ~1 Peter 4:10 

From as early as I can remember, I have had an imagination the size of Texas. My report cards always mentioned, “Laurie needs to stay focused on her school work. Or Laurie is often lost in daydreams.” Both statements were true. But my natural instinct was to wonder. I wondered if Dick and Jane could run faster and jump higher with their PF Fliers. Or, I wondered what it would be like to taste a cherry off of George Washington’s cherry tree, or what it would sound like to ride a leprechaun’s rainbow.

All that wondering transported me to welcoming places in my imagination. I don’t think a day went by in my childhood where my imagination wasn’t producing great adventures for me. I was a pirate, I was an astronaut, I was a cowgirl, I was a librarian, I was a teacher, I was a mother, I was Leonardo’s prodigy. Every day I as I stepped into my imagination, I learned something new about myself and about the world.

I am grateful God wired me differently. I’m glad he allowed me to view things differently than many of my classmates. The very thing, my imagination, that used to get me into trouble in school is now one of my most valuable tools as a writer.