The Heart of a Child: Awakening Your Gifts
By Megan Naumovski, Illustrator - DrawingOnGrace.com
How do we know what gifts we are to cultivate and how our hopes and dreams should evolve? We can begin by asking the Lord what He thinks and then listening with the heart of a child who dreams big and isn’t limited by doubt. With a heart full of trust and hope, God wants us to explore the desires of our heart.
FINDING MY HEART LANGUAGE
As a child, I would pour over the Sunday funnies at the breakfast table while doodling on paper napkins with my pen. I would make my own cartoons about my family’s antics and get lost for hours in the library reading animated children’s books. I sketched until I was about twelve years old and then got caught up in the world of cheerleading and school dances. Decades later, while planning my 25th anniversary dreamtrip to Ireland and England, I became inspired by Susan Branch’s book “A Fine Romance.” In this book about her travels to England, she writes, illustrates, and paints her experiences with such wit and charm that I felt the “mothership” had called me home! I knew right away this avenue of expression was my “heart language” and God had placed it there long ago when I was a child. I bought a blank journal especially for the trip. I carried it with me throughout the trip, making notes on our experiences and drawing was before me.
I started to show selected people my work. Their responses overwhelmed me. Surely they are just being kind...? I wondered. I continued to experiment and get feedback from those I could trust. I posted some items on Facebook knowing that is an avenue where people are usually brutally honest.
Within months, my work was being noticed and I started getting jobs doing commissioned work. My family encouraged me to begin to sell my art. Soon my daughter-in-law lent me her excellent marketing and consulting skills to build the base of our small company. I never imagined I would be starting a business in this stage of my life, but I know God’s hand was in it. He drew out the desires that He placed in me when He created me and knew what would fill my heart more than I could have designed for myself. He wants us to be happy and fulfilled when using our gifts to bring light into a dark world.
When you discover your God-given gifts and talents, you will experience an incredible sense of peace and joy when you put them to use for His glory. What are your talents? If you don’t know, how do you find them? How do you know if you are using them for God’s glory? Here are a few things that helped me find my answers.
INTENTIONALITY
We need to be intentional about taking stock of the things that make us “Oooo” and “Ahhhh.” Pinterest is wildly popular because we can see the things that inspire us come together in one space to create a scene that makes us want to jump right into it. Here are some areas to help direct our search for where to use our gifts:
Are you attracted to certain art or music?
Who are you “following” on social media?
What books do you read? I once heard someone say once that he could tell what kind of person you are instantly by looking at your bookshelves.
Where do you notice a need in the world? How do you imagine that someone could fulfill that need?
When do you receive compliments from others? All these things can help define where you find your talents.
Don’t forget pray and ask for God to show you how He wants you to act. This is simple but often we overlook this important step.
MARK EACH TINY STEP AS A VICTORY
As a mom, I think back to a time when my daughter decided to commit to taking dance classes to perfect her art. At that time it was simply “taking ballet lessons” to everyone else. However, when I would pick her up each night she would tell me how she managed to remember a correction her teacher gave her and carry it through the class. Sometimes it was just about keeping a muscle turned a certain way, but we considered these small victories as if they were a great hurdle toward her goal.
When I sold my first pack of illustration postcards to a corner bakery in town, it was a great moment of gratitude for me. It marked for me that people were not only willing to pay for my art but display it and expect to have others pay for it as well. After that same business commissioned me for a larger project later in the year, I walked directly into the church across the street and thanked Jesus, telling him it was all for Him!
WATCHING FOR POTHOLES
Even in my gratitude, sometimes I can get swept away in the “doing” and fall into traps that stunt the effectiveness of what I am supposed to do. When I lose perspective along the way, I can begin to feel like my dreams weighing me down. I have learned some warning signs of when I wander off course in pursuing my goals. Here are some of the warning signs that I have lost perspective and made my dream something it wasn’t meant to be.
Looking at small but important things as a hinderance to my dreams. My first duty is to live our state in life well with gratitude and joy. As a wife and a mother, I need to remember that when I honor my family, I honor God. If I find making a meal or doing dishes as a burden to my time needed for “my dreams”, then I have become side-swiped and am not prioritizing properly. My priority must be to listen to God and then honor those who have been charged to my care. When I keep first things first, I know God will make the time for me to accomplish the other things I have set about doing to honor Him.
Pushing the process. Anything that doesn’t work out in my estimation does not mean failure. Nothing is wasted when we are aligned with God’s will. I have learned so much through the mistakes I have made in my life and those lessons serve me later. When I offer my day to God first thing in the morning and consecrate my work to the Lord, He blesses it, even if it didn’t look like I thought it should. When I am trying to control the outcome of things too much, it creates a sense of anxiety in my heart, and that makes me work too hard in directions that I am not supposed to go. I need to invite the Holy Spirit into the process and have patience with myself along the way.
Getting caught up in my own image and success. This is the easiest hinderance to God’s will in my life. I forget this dream is HIS DREAM FOR ME, not my dream for me. What I mean by that is that God created me, gave me the gifts and talents, and gave me breath to get up in the morning and live my life. It’s all Him. When I am checking my social media too often for “likes”, “followers”, and comments, or when I am spending too much time promoting myself, I let my pride and vanity derail God’s purpose for my dream. Every big job I have had and all of my favorite projects have come by word of mouth or through someone else who is living their life to serve God with all that they have. I don’t have to get anxious about making sure I am seen.
THERE IS NO EXPIRATION DATE ON DREAMS.
I once heard a story about a woman who had the most astounding voice and wanted to be an opera singer. She instead got married and had a family. When she was in her nineties, she ended up in a nursing facility alone. One night she stood up and started singing again for all to hear. Soon the place was frequently flocked by people coming to hear her sing. Wow! What a great reminder this story is that our gifts are not created with start dates or expiration dates! God is not bound by time.
We were each created out by Love Himself, to be loved and bring love into the world. Not only did God design you and me with a specific way to do this, but He has planted seeds in us that He means to grow and harvest. He uses people along our path to water them. God has gone before us in all things, and He has given us desires for a purpose. It’s never too late and we’re never too old to live out our dreams for Him, with the heart of a child!
About Meg Naumovski
Megan Naumovski is a wife, mom, blogger, and the creator of Drawing on Grace Illustrations. She has a B.A. in psychology and worked as a vocational counselor before finding her love of teaching the Catholic faith, encouraging others to “live in the Holy Spirit each moment of life and have ‘lenses of faith’ to see His marvelous deeds!” You can find Meg’s blogs at BOSCOWORLD.BLOG, and follow her passion for illustrating at Drawing on Grace INSTAGRAM and FACEBOOK pages.
Meg’s reSOURCEs:
See her illustration products at DrawingOnGrace.com
Book that inspired her drawing and her new business:
Susan Branch’s A Fine Romance