Let's take a moment to appreciate one of the staples of my Christian childhood, shall we?
Bob the Tomato. Larry the Cucumber. Waltzing down the produce aisle. Silly songs and Bible parodies and Qwerty's verse of the day. You know what I'm talking about—it's VeggieTales, the children's show created by Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki to teach kids about God through—you guessed it—vegetables.
Crazy as it sounds, I'm still inspired by the ingenuity of this show and what it has accomplished for Christ. I hear it's changed ownership recently and undergone some changes not entirely for the better, but for the purpose of this post I'll be referring to the classics, the VeggieTales I grew up with that is still living on today!
On a recent trip to visit my brother and his family, we had the joy of introducing my niece to VeggieTales' Jonah (a favourite of mine), and seeing the evident impact of watching an asparagus be swallowed by a disproportionate yellow whale. It got me thinking about what makes VeggieTales so special—not the clever parodies, catchy songs, or witty humour, but the ability to reach a kid with a biblical story in a way they will never forget. My niece now knows that "the whale ate Jonah" with perfect surety, and as she grows older she'll start to understand the deeper context of that statement as well. To quote the asparagus Archibald, "Yes, good has been done here!"
As a writer, it's easy to doubt that anything I create will ever have an impact. But God is the God of creativity and inspiration as much as anything else, and He gifts us all in unique ways to accomplish unique purposes. He used Phil Vischer and Mike Nawrocki to glorify His name through vegetables, He is using me to proclaim his power through Kyrian and The Heir of Ariad, and He is using you, through your God-given gifts, to do great things in ways you may not even see! It's so exciting to know that our inspiration comes from the Father of Inspiration Himself, and that God can use even the wackiest gifts to accomplish great things in His Kingdom.
I hope someone out there is encouraged by this post the way I was encouraged by the simple stories that inspired it. And of course, dear reader, always remember: "God made you special, and He loves you very much!"
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