My COVID silver lining: Unleashing my creative spirit

By Jessica Brodie

Yes, COVID stinks. I write this as my family is in quarantine with COVID… my husband tested positive, one of my stepkids tested positive, and I have all the symptoms but only tested negative because I think I went for my test a bit too early (and I really don’t feel like dragging my tired, congested, hacking-up-a-lung body out of the house for a retest).

Let’s just say Thanksgiving was extra-fun this year... not really.

By the time this appears on my blog, I’m certain we’ll all be back to normal and very, very grateful our spell with the dreaded pandemic wasn’t much worse. We had a very mild strain, but I have friends who are still struggling with post-COVID symptoms six months after their bout, and others whose loved ones have died from it.

But today, I share the very best thing that has come from not only my experience with COVID but the impact it’s had on me since March, when the pandemic changed life as we know it for the long haul.

Maybe it’s been all this extra time at home, but COVID has awakened a new spurt of creativity within me. I’m a writer, as you likely know—not only blogs but also nonfiction, devotionals, journalism, and fiction—and I’ve been writing a ton. My newest novel won’t stop pouring out of me.

But then there’s the thing I always said I couldn’t do: paint! Believe it or not, I’ve starting painting—like, ACTUAL pictures. I’m not great, and it’s definitely amateur hour over here, but I’m doing it. Trees! Landscapes! I even made Halloween signs for our house and Thanksgiving signs, and last night I painted a dozen cute wooden Christmas ornaments to give to family and friends.

I started a weekly YouTube channel over the summer, and I’ve been reading like nobody’s business. I can’t get enough.

Oh, yeah… and then there’s exercise! I’ve started daily walks in my neighborhood, and almost-daily yoga.

It’s like there’s a simmering soup of creative lava bubbling up within me, and it’s got to go somewhere or I’ll explode.

So yeah, this year has been hard. Different. Weird. Frustrating. At times I tell myself if I have to continue to help my oldest brainstorm argumentative essay topics or my youngest master integers or dividing fractions, I’m going to have a meltdown. (And I work full-time, too! Talk about stretching my brain.) Then there’s the serious stuff, like finances and health scares.

When life is hard, I tend to go into survival mode. I pare down everything to the basics, the essentials, the “truly necessary.” I hunker down in my hermit hole and do what I can to keep my head above the waves.

But this creative unleashing during COVID is teaching me something new: What if I don’t have to just survive during rough spots? What if I can thrive?

Proverbs 24:10 tells us, “If you fail under pressure, your strength is too small” (NLT).

James 1:2-4 reminds us, “Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing.”

In Romans 8:28, we’re told, “And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.”

And in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, it says, “We are pressed on every side by troubles, but we are not crushed. We are perplexed, but not driven to despair. We are hunted down, but never abandoned by God. We get knocked down, but we are not destroyed.”

Pressed down but not crushed. Knocked down but not destroyed. That’s good news!

Life isn’t easy, whether during COVID or just in general. There is beauty even in times of terror, sickness, grief, and isolation.

Look around you. Can you see the beauty?

If not, consider picking up a pen or a paintbrush and see what God can show you.

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