Why you buggin??

52 Week Project 2012 ~ Week 25
"Better late than never, heh?" #catchphraseofmylife

Last Saturday night, my boyfriend Pat and I set out on a mission to catch some lightning bugs. With over forty years of combined experience, I must say, we had pretty good success. Trying to get a cool picture of those tiny little critters, however, was a totally different story. I don't know how many pictures I took that night, but this was the only one that turned out. 

That's a lightning bug on Pat's finger, in case you were confused. Looks pretty freaky huh? Let's take a closer look....

Okay...whether you call it a lightning bug or a firefly, it's definitely one creepy looking insect. Let's zoom in one more time...

Wow! I'll bet you'll think twice the next time you want to catch a lightning bug, huh?

This Is The Story Of A Girl......

Only two more days of class left, then finals, and then I'm done my first year of college! I don't know where the time went. My mom has always said that the college years will be the fastest four (or five) years of my life. At the rate things are going, I think she's probably going to be right.

This past week has been crazy with finishing up papers and projects, and unfortunately, I haven't had as much quiet time with the Lord as I've needed. I was reading Psalm 139 this morning and was reminded of the reality of God's presence that I tend to lose sight of when I get wrapped up in the busyness of life.

52 Week Project 2012 ~ 17/52

I feel like sometimes life seems more like riding a train. We get on knowing our final destination, but not being in control, we're not completely sure how we're going to get there.

The Conductor, however, knows the course. Even in our complaining about the multiple stops that must be made along on the way, we trust Him. After all, if we didn't, we wouldn't still be riding His train, right?

So, those were my thoughts this morning after reading Psalm 139 and reflecting on my week.

Since my metaphor has lots of holes in it, maybe it'd be better if you all just read God's Word for yourselves. . .

"O LORD, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise;  you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD. 

You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 

For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 

If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."  ~  Psalm 139:1-24

I hope you all enjoy the picture for week 17 of my 52 Week Project, and remember that even when it doesn't feel like God's in control, He's the one who set down the tracks and knows the course full well.

Any Other Way: ALPACA?

"I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection

 and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings,

 becoming like him in his death, 

and so, somehow, 

to attain to the resurrection from the dead." 

~ Philippians 3:10

Sometimes it’s hard to be thankful for the difficult and trying weeks. Most people don’t naturally embrace pain. I sure know that I don’t. The countless ways that I know how to reduce pain and my stubborn curiosity for finding new pain management techniques prove that I don’t enjoy living under physical distress nor do I find pleasure in the actual experience of suffering. This week was one of those weeks where I wished more than anything for relief from illness, from migraines, from fatigue: the things that drained me dry, physically, emotionally, and spiritually.

In search of a thankful spirit within my broken and contrite heart, I found great peace and comfort through the songs on my playlist for the week. Tenth Avenue North’s albums The Light Meets the Dark and Over and Underneath were on repeat on my ipod, and I really enjoyed actually having time, despite the accompanying migraines, to listen to the lyrics of many songs that I had never taken the time to listen all the way through. 

One such song in particular has been “Any Other Way” which talks about how pain is necessary for love to exist:

It’s not enough, it’s not enough

Just to say that you’re okay

I need your hurt

I need your pain

It’s not love any other way

Take a listen to what the lead singer of Tenth Avenue North 

has to say about the meaning behind the song. 

He says it better than I could...

I feel like so often we’re tempted, or at least I am, to put on our rose-colored glasses and idealize love in a way that distorts the essence of what love is. Love isn’t always easy. Love carries us through our struggles, our hurt, and our pain. Love doesn’t run away when the going gets tough. Love sticks by us not matter what. Love bids us to come as we are and welcomes us with arms wide open. Love is forever and a day. Nothing can scare it away---not even pain. 

With Jesus by my side this week even as I laid in bed (or on the floor…) too sick to take care of myself, this is the love that comforted me. Christ's love—expressed through the compassionate actions of friends as close as family, the prayers of dedicated saints back home, the grace from my understanding professors and faculty at Messiah, and even the lyrics of simple songs—comforted me. In these little things, which were actually really big things this week, I saw and felt the greatness of God’s love.

God loved me by sending his son to suffer the ultimate pain, so that “By his wounds," truth be told, "you have been healed” (1 Peter 2:24). This amazing truth always gives us a reason to be thankful even when our present circumstances may seem less than desirable. I've clung to that verse this week, and I hope it can encourage you as well in whatever you're going through. 

52 Week Project 2012 ~ 13/52 ~ Horsey & Alpaca!! =)

For week 13 of my 52 Week Project, I was blessed to meet this horsey and alpaca--Otto and Taps. I wouldn't have had this opportunity if I wasn't so sick this past week because they were in the backyard of this lady's house where I had a therapy appointment today. Although it may seem out of place, I really like this picture and it definitely means a lot to me. I hope that you all can just embrace the awkward timing of this picture and remember that blessings come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes we can't explain with words why they're blessings, but during those moments, we can be thankful that a picture is worth a thousand words. That's how my week's been, so I'm just gonna leave it at that for now. Isn't that a nice lookin' horsey and alpaca though?? I think so!

My Creation Project

I made an album of the following photographs of God's Creation for my Creation project for my freshman core class. My artist statement is also posted below which explains the meaning behind these pictures.
My goal in this project was to illustrate the significance that creativity has on spirituality.

Enjoy! 

    

Capturing Creativity’s Spiritual Significance

            History proves the human need for creative expression, and yet, we often fail to recognize the significance of creativity. At its core, creativity shapes us to become more like God. Before the Bible reveals any other aspect of God’s nature, it highlights God’s role as Creator and the value He places on his creative works. Furthermore, because God made mankind in His image and likeness, we have inherited his trait of creativity, a gift far exceeding monetary value. Creativity’s significance resides rather in the divine effects it has on our spiritual growth: shaping our human hearts, sustaining our weary souls, and renewing our finite minds. 

This photo album, which I entitled “Your Love is Big,” displays some of my favorite pictures that I took of God’s Creation, His marvelous masterpiece. The title comes from my amazement of God’s greatness, love, and creativity, which I cannot separate in my mind, though I attempt to capture glimpses of through my photos. I arranged the photos according to the account of creation recorded in the first chapter of Genesis, but I started with a picture depicting love because “God created the world out of love” (Jacobsen and Sawatsky 30). By mounting the photos on a sequence of rainbow colored paper, my album speaks of God’s promise to and passionate value for his creative works. God’s plan of redeeming creation reveals that the products of His creativity, and thus, creativity in and of itself, possess deep significance in God’s eyes (Van Dyke 85).

Since I am both a child and servant of God, I have adopted God’s deep value of creativity and desire to use mine to glorify Him and to serve His creation. Through my photography in this album, I seek to preserve the beauty and glory of nature and inspire others to appreciate its beauty as well. Not only so, but also as a result of my obedience to creative expression to which God calls us all, other people gain the opportunity to have their hearts shaped, souls quenched, and minds renewed in unique ways by the Creator of Heaven and Earth.

            Photography as an art form has opened many gates through which God has shaped, sustained, and renewed me, particularly in light of severe trial. These photos serve to mark my creative impulse; on a much deeper level, the process of producing them has served me in my spiritual growth, helping me develop resiliency and perseverance through seasons of pain and suffering which otherwise could potentially stifle creativity and suck the life out of a person. It is in this frame of thought that I identify to a certain degree with Alice Walker’s mother, who, regardless of “whatever rocky soil she landed on, she turned [it] into a garden” (31). For her, creativity in the garden gave her the strength to endure the hardships in life. In the same way, capturing glimpses of God’s character in photos of His creation—especially the flowers in my mother’s garden, like the last photo in this album which corresponds to the seventh day of creation when God rested—often provides me with the necessary dose of expressed creativity that God uses to restore my hope and my joy which then gives me the power and grace to persevere through life’s difficulties.

            If we took the risk to express our creativity, believing in its significant transformational power, I know that without a doubt, we would witness a spiritual revival before our very eyes because, as one can see from my photos, God’s love is big.

Works Cited

Jacobsen, Douglas and Rodney J. Sawatsky. (2006). Gracious Christianity: Living the Love We

Profess. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic. 

Van Dyke, Fred. “A Comprehensive Christian Environmental Ethic.” Messiah College, Editor.

(2012). The CCC Reader. Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks [CR].

Walker, Alice. “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens.” Messiah College, Editor. (2012). The CCC

Reader. Acton, MA: Copley Custom Textbooks [CR].

Cloudy with a Chance of Joy

52 Week Project 2012 ~ 7/52

You could say with a great amount of accuracy that I had my head stuck in the clouds this week. I couldn't tell you why, but for some reason clouds have consumed much of my thoughts, hence, the winning cloud picture for week 7 of my 52 Week Project. Much of my time spent walking to and from class consisted of me gazing up toward the sky in wonder of this curious piece of God's creation. Some people like to think of God as a skilled artist who paints a new masterpiece on his canvas of sky each day. Others take a more scientific view, with concrete explanations for the variances of cloud formations and sunset hues. Either way I look at it, I can't help but marvel at the intelligence and creativity of Creator God.

I'm taking a class this semester in which we've read and discussed many essays on creation and related themes of creativity, conservation, and the like for the past three weeks. One of my main takeaways from this unit highlights the importance of valuing creation. I've always appreciated and enjoyed nature's beauty, but the past few weeks have stretched and deepened my appreciation and enjoyment even more so. In light of the fact that God passionately values his creation, every single part--he saw that all of it was very good--I have come to the understanding that there is more to appreciate, enjoy, and value than only creation's beauty. Although beauty speaks to the depths of my being, I'm discovering a deeper message tucked under the surface of my initial awestruck gaze.

Just as an artist puts his heart and soul into his masterpiece, I'm convinced that has God woven pieces of himself into the fabric of his creation. Each strand encompasses a distinctly divine meaning and uniquely expresses the very nature of God. Up close, we can examine the details of nature which speak volumes by themselves; stepping back, we try to see the whole picture, aided by the gift of photography, bird's eye view images, and our wildly vivid imaginations and memories of nature at its finest. Then we catch a glimpse of the greatness of God.

Taking an up close and personal look at clouds this week, I was blessed on a number of occasions to experience the joy and peace of seeing rays of glorious light beaming down from the sea of clouds above. For some reason, I always seem to acknowledge the presence of light more when clouds also fill in pieces of the picture. The combination of their contrast and reflective qualities with my human attraction and need for light brings me to consider why God would value clouds so much as to call them good. So often, we associate clouds with negativity, gloomy (usually headache-filled) days that block out our dearly loved sun. People usually steer away from others who have "cloudy" dispositions. Cloudy days can really put a damper on our plans. And yet, God declares clouds as good, for they serve the vital role of watering the earth which makes the plants grow, sustains creation, and brings new life.

In recognizing the necessity of clouds, I can see more clearly the necessity of trials. Like clouds, we don't particularly care for trials; both bring headaches, make us gloomy, tired, and desperate for the light. Like clouds, trials can put a big damper on our plans. Like clouds, thank God, trials also come and go. The storms of life may rage for a season, but when the winds settle, the skies will clear. Like clouds, trials can quench our dry and thirsty souls if we choose to dance in the rain instead of hide under our umbrellas of pride, pity, and self-dependence. Like clouds, trials can increase our sensitivity to our need for the Light. Like clouds, trials play an irreplaceable role in growing and sustaining us through the course of our lives.

I'm thankful for the fruit that trials can ultimately produce in us. I'm thankful for the Light of the world that breaks through, beaming rays of joy and peace in the darkness of our hardships. I'm thankful for all the blessings that God's Creation speaks.

Battling for the New

52 Week Project 2012 ~ 5/52
Taken at Midtown Scholar in Harrisburg, PA

A slight breeze of uneasiness often comes over me when I try something new for the very first time. Whether or not the uneasiness blows from the hovering clouds retaining my fear of the unknown, my insecurity, or my doubt, it has the notorious ability of keeping me up at night. At the beginning of the week, I moved my stuff back to Messiah for the start of the spring semester. Initially, I had the hardest time falling asleep in my newly arranged room, but I somehow seemed to wake up ready to take on each new day with a strange, nervous energy. If you’ve met me, you know that I am the farthest from being a morning person. However, the odd combination of excitement and uneasiness rolled me out of bed, most days before my alarm even told me to! And, like most other college students, that rarely ever happens to me.

It has surely been a week full of new experiences—new classes, professors, and books; new hall mates, laughter, and friendships; new blessings, hardships, and opportunities. The picture for week 5 of my 52 Week Project was taken in the Poetry section of Midtown Scholar, an old bookstore/coffe house renovated from a movie theater located somewhere in the city Harrisburg (except I couldn't tell you where because today was my first time visiting the place...another new experience of mine!).  All this newness got me thinking about both the fear and the joy which so often surrounds the new.

We always have a choice when it comes to stepping out and trying new things. We can either allow fear to paralyze us, keeping us stuck in the ways of the old, or we can overcome that fear, and thereby, take hold of the joy, satisfaction, and blessing, which accompanies the new.

Now I realize that not all new things are necessarily good, and sometimes fear protects us from naively entering into dangerous circumstances. However, I think you know that's not the kind of fear I'm talking about. There comes a time when we must put off the old and put on the new, whether we’re fearful or not.

As Christians in particular, who have been made new in Christ, the time has already come. But in case you missed the memo, the time is now. Regardless of your past regrets, regardless of your past mistakes, whether you messed up a year ago or 5 minutes ago, in Christ, you are a new creation. The old has gone; the sin, all of it, has been forgiven, wiped out, erased. Because of Christ’s blood that was shed for you, your future is spotless. You can now clothe yourself with his righteousness, holiness, and dignity. Fear and shame need not hold you back from the joy of the Lord, the joy of your salvation, the joy of living as one who's been made new.

If you’re still feeling a breeze of uneasiness, if you’re stuck in the shadow of the cloud of the unknown, if you have yet to experience this newness in Christ, I would encourage you to take the steps necessary for you to personally overcome whatever fear and doubt are holding you back from acquiring such joy. 

Ask questions. There are answers.

Cry out to God. He hears you.

Let Christ’s love revive your weary soul. He longs to do so.

God, the maker of Heaven and Earth, longs to be in relation with you, longs to make you whole, longs to make you new. Don’t let your fear of abandoning your old ways disguise the ultimate blessing of God’s redeeming grace.

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.  For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.” ~ Luke 11:9-10

My Daily Dose of Beauty

This past summer I invested in a new digital camera. Nothing too over-the-top, but complex enough that I'm still trying to figure out how to fully utilize all of its high-tech settings. After trying to capture our family vacation to Florida, our friend's wedding, a Philly's game or two, going to college, coming home for Fall Break, and the many memorable moments in between, I presently I find myself with the most precious little puppy sprawled across my lap on this year's Christmas Eve eve.

I absolutely love taking pictures. I love looking back and remembering. Making memories is one thing, but for me, holding on to them, appreciating and cherishing them, is of great value.

Out of the thousands of pictures I've taken since July, the vast majority has been of people and nature. Both of which radiate beauty from their core. But there's something about flowers in particular that has captured my eye.

Their vibrant color, delicate form, and breath of pureness, their complexity wrapped up in the beauty of simplicity, their ability to nourish, comfort, and inspire. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I love flowers. Along with the rest of nature's adornments, the eloquent beauty of a flower often provides me with my daily dose of beauty that my soul so desperately craves.

If we didn't need beauty in our lives, then God could've created a colorless, dreary, flowerless Earth in which we would feel satisfied living the mundane life. But if you stop for a minute amidst the chaos of last minute Christmas shopping, cooking, and cleaning, and look around, the beauty of creation speaks.

Its beauty invites us to linger, take it in, explore--and as we gaze upon the magnificent creation around us, we can catch a glimpse of the Creator's beauty as well, reminding us of the hope of eternity where more beauty awaits, ready to be unveiled upon our arrival.

This Christmas, don't busy yourself so much so that you miss your chance to stop and smell the roses (or the fresh pine and gingerbread cookies), to gaze upon the beauty all around you, and to draw near to and thank the God who encompasses the very essence of beauty and makes this season one worth celebrating.