I opened my sketchbook to a blank page.

“I wonder what will come out today?” I thought as I picked up my favorite pencil and set the tip of sharpened graphite down on the vast sea of nothingness that patiently waited to be transformed into something-ness.

And I drew a circle.

A solitary circle.

I knew there must be some mistake—surely I wasn’t finished for the day, but my creative soul insisted that it was complete and the satisfaction that rushed over me applauded me into believing that I had just sketched the never-before-seen Mona Lisa.

“This. This is talent,” my heart affirmed.

My brain argued in response as I imagined showing it at my next exhibit next to the sketches that had taken me days and years and that had tested about every limit I had known I had. They had practically had to be ripped out of me.

“You don’t understand!” My heart was becoming more and more exasperated as the eraser loomed closer and closer still “You don’t get how great this is, do you?!”

Apparently I did not.

Again, I tried to picture in my mind what it would really be like: an 8 by 11 ½” piece of sketch paper next to the 6 foot cuts I had imported for exhibition purposes.

A circle. A lopsided circle.

I saw myself giving an introduction worthy of a brooding high school teenager. You know the type, the kind that rebel against “the man” and write books and books of deep poetry in their spare time.

“My heart—it just told me it was right!” I would explain. And then everyone would “ooh” and “ahh” and try to find the deep meaning within the one-sided figure.

Eyeliner and Shakespeare, that’s me.

I fought against that circle—and I fought hard.

I laid the eraser back down on my desk so that the poor thing might stop feeling too threatened. “Okay.” I said, throwing in the towel, “Speak your piece.”

But it stayed exactly as it was on the page, offering no explanation to the brilliant aura which it forced upon me.

I tilted it all different ways, I yelled at it, sang it a lullaby. Tilted myself all different ways. I even thought about adding more to it—maybe even making a happy face or something—but the thought made me feel sick.

I discovered that if you stared at it long enough, the single line would fade and convince you that you had always been staring at a blank page.

“This could not be my best work!”  I blatantly told my heart.

But my heart only answered, “Why not?”

“Because that’s ridiculous! Anyone can draw a circle! Who would buy that?”

“Probably no one.” was my heart’s chipper response. “But this is art in its simplest form; when someone sees beauty in something that they’ve created. Even if others see it as commonplace.”

I grinned. He’s a quick one, that heart.

“You think that’s something,” my heart continued, “imagine how God feels every day.”