Sketching stories, sharing faith

Editor's note: The following text is a transcript of a podcast story. To listen to the story, click on the arrow beneath the headline above.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, May 21st. This is WORLD Radio!

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next: the power of God-given creativity.

MAST: Psalm 24 declares “The earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein.”

Or as another translation puts it, “the world and everything in it”—speaking of God’s ownership of it all.

EICHER: Genesis speaks of God’s creating man in his image, and so he wired us toward creativity and beauty, wonder and truth. Today, WORLD Reporter Jenny Rough will introduce us to an illustrator whose joyful imagination deepened not only his art, but his friendships—and his faith.

JENNY ROUGH: Aaron Zenz was a typical kid. He grew up in the 80s, doing typical kid stuff:

AARON ZENZ: You know, go out and ride my bike, play basketball, and all of those kinds of things. But for me, my greatest joy was drawing and coming up with characters. For me, drawing and writing was a form of play.

One day, Zenz jotted down a single stanza rhyming poem in his sketchbook. There was a hippopotamus who hiccupped quite-a-lotamus.

ZENZ: And every time he got’emus, he’d fall upon his bottomus!

He kinda liked it. So he held onto it. For years. In college, he took a children’s literature class. At the end of the course …

ZENZ: The professor said, “Alright, now that we’ve been studying children’s books all year, how about everybody take a crack at writing one of your own?”

Zenz used his rhyme to create a draft manuscript about a hippo who can’t get rid of the hiccups. As time went on, he’d pull it out and tweak it. Drop in a new character or two. In 2005, a start-up published Zenz’s book The Hiccupotamus.

It had been on store shelves only a few months when Zenz saw an email in his inbox. It was from a bookseller in Ohio named Meg Kuta.

ZENZ: And she said, I’m just going out on a limb here, I really love your book. Most of the time—I’ve been doing this a lot of years—when a new title comes into the store, you can kind of count on maybe over the course of the book’s run, selling maybe five copies is normal.

Kuta had been hand-selling the book to customers. When she sold her 101st copy, she sent the message.

Zenz could have responded with a simple thank you. But he went out on a limb, too.

ZENZ: It was a little bit scary. In my reply I kind of said something to the effect of, Thank you very much for the kind words. I appreciate that, I also just want to take all that praise and direct it to God who made all this possible. I will forward this to Him, you know?

Kuta wrote back.

ZENZ: Oh my goodness! You’re a Christian. I’m a Christian. That’s so neat that you brought that up and you said that.

A friendship was born. On Zenz’s book tour, their families met, and they became close. They prayed for each other over the years.

During that time, Zenz’s family grew to include six kids. He says they inspire his creativity and illustrations. He prefers to use colored pencils … and he uses them in an unusual way. Basically, like paint.

ZENZ: I push really, really, really hard on the pencil. I don’t like seeing the actual sketchy pencil marks. I try to make the fact that it’s a pencil disappear.

He's broken a lot of pencil tips.

Every time another one snaps off, he drops it in a clear container on his desk.

ZENZ: There’s literally about 2,000 pencil tips in here.

As of today, Zenz has illustrated 45 books. He wrote nine of them. He says the Bible teaches us from the very beginning that we’re creative beings.

ZENZ: God is a creator God. He made everything that exists. That is his nature. It’s who he is, he’s a creator. And then very quickly we read that God created us in his image, so we are like him in very fundamental ways. And so therefore we are also creators in a way nothing else in this world is. Giraffes aren’t putting on plays for each other. Fish aren’t telling stories to each other.

Zenz uses art to remember Scripture.

ZENZ: As I’m doing my personal devotions for the day, I will look for some truth, and I will draw an image to try to represent that truth. Rather than be like, oh yeah, thanks God, that’s a good point, then move on with your day. But if I’m going to draw an image, that’s a timely process, so my mind is thinking through this in deeper ways.

Sketch of Psalm 23 by Aaron Zenz Courtesy of Aaron Zenz

Psalm 23, for example. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil. For you are with me. Zenz drew dark, jagged rocks with a narrow path leading down through them. At the bottom, he drew a shepherd figure holding his hand. When he struggles, he brings the picture to mind.

ZENZ: I’m there, like I’m trusting the savior. Trusting my shepherd.

Years after they met, Zenz learned Kuta, the bookseller, was sick.

ZENZ: She had cancer in her eye. In her world, it’s like God, family, books was the order of things that was most important to her. So she’s going through all sorts of emotions. She’s grieving the loss of her vision. All the questions that you have. Why, God?

In April 2022, Kuta’s husband sent Zenz a message. She’d been hospitalized and didn’t survive. With a heavy heart, Zenz read the online condolence messages. One said, Meg can see well now. Zenz thought of 1 Corinthians 13. It refers to the fact that presently we can’t see things clearly. But one day, we will.

In his sketch journal, Zenz drew an image of a face, divided down the middle. On one side, a dark eye.

ZENZ: But then on the other half, her eye, bright blue, shining, glowing. There’s shining stars and suns that represent vision. There’s things in there that represent sound. It’s sad that we’ve lost her. But there is this promise that it’s all going to make sense.

Zenz says using his God-given creativity to tell stories reminds him of God’s ultimate story.

ZENZ: He gives us these visual word pictures for us to hang onto because he knows we need those things. But it’s just like I have such a longing for like that day when all this stuff that I hold by faith, when I'm going to realize it and I'm gonna see it, and all these kind of visual word hugs that I get is like, I'm longing for the real hug.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Jenny Rough.

WORLD Radio transcripts are created on a rush deadline. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of WORLD Radio programming is the audio record.