purpose

framed

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framedThe first time I shared my testimony in the recovery ministry at church, I asked God for a takeaway I could leave people with so it wasn’t just all about me. In His lavish provision, He immediately gave me three – using personally significant art forms, no less. Here is the first:

You could say that photography was my second love (behind Star Wars, of course).

[ . . . ]

In principle, all photography is simply “writing” (my third love) with light by permanently capturing it on a photo-sensitive medium such as film and then transferring it to a displayable format.

[ . . . ]

Spiritually speaking, God showed me that these . . . READ ON

owning our stories

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typing-handsGoing home is always an experience. Now the “home” I just came back to visit is not the city I grew up in, nor the town in which I currently live, but the place of my deepest and most resonant friendships.

A few weeks of hanging out with so many of my very favorite “peeps” has filled my soul like hardly anything else can.

I have laughed, and cried, and laughed until I cried. I have joyfully celebrated great victories and tearfully mourned great struggles – many of which I am, regretfully, just learning about. I have met the children of close friends for the first time and caught up with these amazing parents until my heart overflowed. My peeps have even helped me make a few new friends who are already kindred spirits (apparently the peeps of my peeps are also my peeps, lol).

I don’t know how to express it other than this: I have LIVED . . . outside of my own headspace . . . for the first time in way too long . . .

Funny thing is, all this living I’m suddenly doing has made me look back at the last season of my life and wonder . . . READ ON

acceptance

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aurora-borealisLet’s face it – life is just one big raw deal. Now do I mean this in the melancholic, overly-dramatic, “Oh, poor me” sense? No. It’s just reality. Everyone experiences pain, everyone has issues. Every human being who’s ever existed came face-to-face regularly with the disappointments inherent in life from the moment of his or her birth (and perhaps even before).

Our existence is difficult and challenging and draining . . . why do we expect otherwise? What is this irrational, sadistic drive in us that tries to put demands on this life that it was never meant to live up to? Jesus Himself, God in the flesh, didn’t escape the pain, injustice, and frustrations of life – why do we think we should we be so lucky? What do we suppose makes us so special?

Well, the fact is that . . . READ ON