In her book, Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott coaches her readers on the art of writing.  She does pages after pages on how to write and what to write and where to start and the many drafts you will do. It's so hard for me to see the finished product and think that it was messy at first.

The "art", experience or journey, of sanctification seems to be the same thing.  Sanctification is the "process of God's grace by which the believer is separated from sin and becomes dedicated to God's righteousness. Accomplished by the Word of God (John 17:7) and the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:3-4), sanctification results in holiness, or purification from the guilt and power of sin."*  I say art because how many rough drafts of this process will I go though?  I have been around for 24 years and feel like I could have written 7 or 8 autobiographies, because each time I pull out the Word and each time I let the Spirit work I am molded and I am changed and I am different.    It's art because regardless of the process it's beautiful; it's a mixed up layer of redacting, exposition, strength, weakness, doodles, highlights and a starring method that I never remember the key.  It's art because it s a form of getting out what has been inside, a pile of our thoughts and ideas on paper or our sins and transgressions before God.  

 "Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground-you can still discover new treasures under all these piles, clean things up, edit things out, fix things, get a grip.  Tidiness suggests that something is a good as its going to get.  Tidiness makes me think of held breath, and suspended animation, while writing need to breathe and move."**

I am almost certain that if I were to hold up my yellow legal pad next to my heart it would look rather the same: cluttered.  But it would still be beating and through the edits I would begin to see the makings of my final draft.  

* Nelson's New Illustrated Bible Dictionary by Ronald F. Youngblood

**Bird by Bird by anne Lamott