Cultivating Awe through the Arts: Practical Principles for Moms & Kids

Most nights when I crawl into bed, my eyes are so heavy I barely make it through two pages of the book I’ve been chipping away at for a month. My thoughts upon waking are most often “Where is the coffee?”—not a hymn of thankfulness. When I load the kids into the car, my first instinct is not to turn on the radio to refine my senses with rapturous orchestral music—I yearn for a moment to hear myself think. The marathon from dinner clean-up to bedtime doesn’t leave much time for poetic readings or picking up a paintbrush. 

When our day-to-day concerns revolve chiefly around feeding mouths and taking care of what comes out the other end, it sometimes feels like motherhood has dumbed us down. We can feel weary, bogged down from task to task and unable to make space for anything “extra.” But to do our work joyfully, our souls need reminding. We need art and beauty and awe—to retell the great Story that sang to our hearts when we first heard it. 

The True Myth 

In the beginning, humanity dwelt with the Word himself and the music was his song—perfect and harmonious. But sin entered and changed the story, distracting us from the good and glorious. Now, we do not yearn as we ought. We struggle to choose what is right. We don’t naturally seek higher things. And yet, God in his great mercy did not let separation or silence be the end. Instead, he writes the greatest story of redemption—what C. S. Lewis famously called 'the true myth’: 

Now the story of Christ is simply a true myth: a myth working on us the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened . . . Christianity is God expressing Himself through what we call “real things”.[1] 

While still here on earth, we taste and see a bit of heaven—a bit of God’s character and glory—in creation, stories, paints, suppers, and songs.[2]. One day, we will shed these shadows for the very presence of the Real—the Word incarnate—and hear the choirs of angels singing the song of all songs.

But in the meantime, we can fill our heads and hearts with beautiful things that point us to Christ—through what we set our eyes on, the things we listen to, and the books that shape us. First and foremost, this is of course God’s Word. But other books, music, and art made by his image-bearers can also help focus our senses, shape our hearts, and set our minds on things above.[3] 

Even when we are tired—no, especially when we are tired—we can encourage our souls to remember God’s goodness and keep eternity stamped on our eyeballs.[4] 

As we look for opportunities to feast on all that is good, for ourselves and our families, here are five principles to help guide us: 

1. Choose the Best Things 

What we choose matters, especially in this age of information overload. Flashy entertainment might satisfy our attention momentarily, but it does not inspire us to wonder. Our souls need nourishing with time-tested beauty and excellence—images, sounds, and themes that stir us to savor deeper truths.[5] If the classics are foreign to you, start small. Just like training for a marathon, we can start with good children’s music and literature (there are so many!) and work our way up to Debussy and Dostoyevsky. The best works of art aren’t just for the professors or the students or the artists and poets—they are for moms too. 

2. Model Wonder 

One of the best ways to foster a love of the highest, most beautiful things in your children is to love them yourself. Even though it is difficult and often inconvenient, I have continued creating throughout young motherhood because painting never fails to slow me down and open my eyes to wonder again, refreshing my soul. I can turn from my easel to my toddler and say, “Look at this flower I’m painting! Do you see the care God put into every curve? Do you see that perfect hue of coral he chose for the tip?” After I started pointing out beauty throughout our ordinary days, she has started to do the same, exclaiming, “Look! Pink! SO pretty!” And there, an opportunity of discipleship can begin, and I can ask, “Who made the flowers? God did!” 

Wonder is not prejudiced against age. Whatever it is for you—whether books or music or museums—find what helps you wonder and experience it alongside your children. 

3. Use the Margins 

Creativity in motherhood is seeing even the smallest of margins as opportunities. This may look like music in car rides, reading with the toddler on the potty, pointing out connections on walks, or using stories in discipline and discipleship.[6] You may love a more structured approach and sit down to read or sing together every evening. Or you may be a go-with-the-flow parent who seizes questions and teachable moments as they arise, but we can all take time to notice. Cultivating awe will look different for every family and every child, and having a storehouse of stories or songs helps color our ordinary days and bring imaginations to life. 

4. Capitalize Resources 

In our age, resources for enjoying art are abundantly ripe for the picking. Libraries have made books and music available for free. Nearly everyone has access to some sort of museum. Most of us have smartphones in our pockets that allow us to view any artwork in a quick Google search and queue up any song on Spotify and YouTube. We ought to praise God for these common graces to us. What bountiful beauty we can behold! 

Of course, with all these resources comes the temptation of distraction and disillusion. While technology can be helpful when stewarded well, it’s also rewired society and the very way we think.[7] The long days of mothering can tempt us towards escapism or tuning out, so let's thoughtfully utilize these tools and not just consume. 

5. Form Good Habits 

This act of remembering by reading, writing, and creating requires integrating the practice into the fabric of our daily lives. We work to develop patterns that will build us up in Christ and persevere in the small moments of beauty, intention, and creativity, in the hope that our families see God’s goodness and grace. 

My eldest child was two months old when she attended her first art gallery. Since then, she’s attended countless gallery openings and walked through museums (even when given a skeptical side-eye from many security guards). I haven’t yet seen the fruit that these seeds of yearning for the Good in the way of literature, music, and visual art will produce. But I sow and pray one day the Lord will reap and that all these whispers of truth will point her to Christ. 

Knowing good words teaches us to know the Word. Seeing beauty teaches us to spot the Truly Beautiful One. Hearing truth tunes our ears to know the Truth. Your children may not yet prefer Bach to Bluey (and believe me, I love some Bluey), but they may see a glimpse of heaven as you try. Press on, and may you behold the glory of Christ all the more for it.

[1] C. S. Lewis, Letter to Arthur Greeves, quoted in https://www.cslewis.com/lewis-on-tolkien-3/.

[2] Psalm 19:1-3: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard.”

[3] Colossians 3:2

[4] Jonathan Edwards famously said, “Lord, stamp eternity on my eyeballs!” 

[5] Philippians 4:8-9 

[6] For example, when your child is acting up, it could be far more effective for their understanding to say, “Don’t be an Edmund” rather than “Stop acting incredulous!” This principle is taken from a Children’s Literature class with a dear college professor of education at Hillsdale College, Dr. Dan Coupland.

[7] I would recommend Samuel James’s recent release Digital Liturgies (Crossway) for an excellent deeper dive on this crucial topic.