Pushing Through to Victory: Discovering Your Creative Purpose by Dyane Forde

Dyane Forde is the founder and editor of online magazine 'The Lost Pen Magazine'. Prior to starting the magazine, she felt called by God to find ways to encourage and help Christian creatives in their own callings.

I featured her in a blog post a couple of month ago, but this time she's writing in her own words Have a read and be inspired to become the creator you were created to be!

As an exhorter with a creative streak, fulfilling my calling as a writer, publisher, and editor and coach, was life-changing. The process took many years. I started as a writer, then became an author, and eventually moved on to publishing and editing. There were times along the way when I thought I had found “it,” only to learn I had totally missed the mark or hadn’t pushed hard enough to get where I needed to be. I learned a lot about myself, my faith, and God through it all. But I wouldn’t trade a minute of it because the journey was worth the results.

Knowing who we are and what we are meant to do in life are the “treasure pots” practically everyone is looking for. My teenage son is one year away from entering college, and he struggles with the million-dollar question: “What do I want to do with my life?”

As children of God striving to serve our Father, don’t we ask the same type of questions?

“What is my godly-purpose?”

“What do I do with my gifts?”

“Surely, God has something for me to do here on earth!”

Since embracing my purpose as an exhorter, counsellor, teacher, and facilitator for Christian creatives pursuing their creative callings, God has continued to deepen my convictions while He continues to build through me what He purposed for me to create. I firmly believe that every believer has the potential to create, whether that be as a layperson or as a professional, and that their works can be powerful spiritual tools in our Father’s hands. Art, music, writing, and other forms of created works connect with people in a way that bypasses the logical mind to hit the heart. Colours, shapes and forms, and the images painted in one’s mind through prose, have the ability to move the soul in ways that conversation cannot. Case in point, Jesus spoke in parables so that “Whoever has ears, let them hear” (Matt. 11:15). In the same way, our works inspired by the Spirit have the same potential to bring change, healing, and restoration to those in need.

Since I started the Christian Creative Nexus in 2018 (which eventually evolved into the Lost Pen Magazine website), my goal has been to inspire, motivate, and encourage believers to see their gifts as more than tools for personal pleasure or to earn a living. My desire is for believers to understand that God can transform the works of their hands into anointed tools that can change lives and the world. The Lost Pen Magazine is a tool through which I exercise my gifts and talents while providing a platform for contributors to use theirs for the same reason: ministering to others for God’s glory. My editing service, Focus Writing Services, is another tool I use to help writers shape and perfect their work so they can effectively share their God-given message. And finally, the Radiant Writers’ Community is the newest tool I use to equip and support Christ-centred writers on the complicated journey to sharing their unique messages with their chosen audiences.

That’s my story. I hope that in reading my experience, you feel the stirrings of the Spirit in your spirit, reawakening dead or sleeping dreams, gifts and talents, and life-purposes. I pray He will reveal strategies and provide resources so you can achieve those re-emerging God-given goals. There is so much God wants to do in you and through you, too.

All you have to do is say, “Here I am, Lord. Use me.”