An Artist's Challenge

A while back I was flipping through the channels and wodered what was on PBS. It actually happened to be a biography on Ansel Adams. One of the things that struck me was how he talked about his father. He apparently was a very spirited child and was in and out of regular school. Here is an excerpt from his autobiography, the paragraph that ends the chapter on his childhood.

"I often wonder at the strength and courage my father had in taking me out of the traditional school situation and providing me with these extraordinary learning experiences. I am certain he established the positive direction of my life that otherwise, given my native hyperactivity, could have been confused and catastrophic. I trace who I am and the direction of my development to those years of growing up in our house on the dunes, propelled especially by an internal spark tenderly kept alive and glowing by my father."

The book is a great read and his sense of humor mirrors mine quite well. But this is the thing that hit me the hardest, both listening to it on TV and reading it from his book. If you know our family, you know that, like Ansel, M is a very active child. We understand that a lot of her behavior is due to the fact that she's 2-and-a-half years old, but she has been an extremely energetic, physical girl from the outset.

To me, the challenge is to find what purpose God made her for and how He has gifted her and to nurture whatever that may be and give her the outlets for her seemingly boundless energy. I need to be open to answers that God lays before me and not quash her spirit just because it's something that I simply don't like. If that's the case, I pray that I would come to like and enjoy those things. And if I'm reluctant because the price is "too much", then I need to trust that God will provide the means for those things, because it is in His will for her to do it.