Out of Nothing At All

One of my distinct childhood memories centers on making something. It was someone's birthday, and I was delighted with the chance to make a wonderful present all by myself (although I no longer remember whose birthday it was.) I ran to ope the bottom drawer of the dresser where I kept my treasures: scraps of satin and grosgrain ribbons, odd buttons, pretty stones, sea shells, and pictures cut from old magazines. Suddenly, as I looked at all these fabulous things, I realized that I did not know how to use them to put together any sort of gift. It was a terrible disappointment. All these pretty things that ought to be shaped into something wonderful, id only I knew how!

Maybe that was the first stirring of my compulsion toward creativity, the constant urge to make something out of nothing.

Early in our marriage, without much income, I took extra joy in turning nothing into something, by seeing possibilities in what others threw away. We made fruit pies and jam from the crabapples and mulberries that grew along the streets. Our cupboards were lined with old gift-wrapping papers. Holiday ornaments were formed from stale bread and white glue.

Now when I look at my hobbies, they all relate in some way to making something out of nothing. Take the left-over scraps from dress-making and turn them into patchwork quilts. Gather dry pine needles to weave a basket. Collect broken glass to make a mosaic window. Carve an egg shell into a work of art. Give me worthless junk and I'll turn it into something beautiful. (No, wait! That's just a figure of speech, please do not send me your junk.)

As a writer, I make my living from ideas I pull out of my head and bring to life in text, then somebody buys those ideas and turns them into magazine articles, study guides or books. Mere ideas become something other people can read and understand, something to spur their own imagination and growth -- something out of nothing at all.

Jesus is, of course, the all-time champion at making something out of nothing. He took death, which is the ultimate nothing, a pure negation of existence, and turned it into eternal life.

Hope, grace, forgiveness, love, and an entire new world . . . out of nothing at all.



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