sheer undiluted slog

a quote from a quote in rob bell's drops like stars -

"But no matter how much the mess and distortion make you want to despair, you can't abandon the work because you're chained to the bloody thing, it's absolutely woven into your soul and you know you can never rest until you've brought truth out of all the distortion and beauty out of all the mess- but it's agony, agony, agony - while simultaneously being the most wonderful and rewarding experience in the world - and that's the creative process which so few people understand.

It involves an indestructible sort of fidelity, an insane sort of hope, and indescribable sort of...well, it's love, isn't it? There's no other word for it...And don't throw Mozart at me...I know he claimed his creative process was no more than a form of automatic writing, but the truth was he sweated and slaved and died young giving birth to all that music. He poured himself out and suffered. That's the way it it. That's creation...You can't create without waste and mess and sheer undiluted slog. You can't create without pain. It's all part of the process. It's in the nature of things.

So in the end every major disaster, every tiny error, every wrong turning, every fragment of discarded clay, al the blood, sweat and tears - everything has meaning. I give it meaning. I reuse, reshape, recast all that goes wrong so that in the end nothing is wasted and nothing is without significance and nothing ceases to be precious to me."

-Susan Howatch on art/sculpting

how incredible that we serve a loving God who turns our ugliness into beauty and uses all things for our good.

But as for me, I am poor and needy;
please hurry to my aid, O God.
You are my helper and my savior;
O Lord, do not delay.

Psalm 70:5