I could run on forever about why I’ve been M.I.A lately but I have a better idea…
Seven Truths
- I’ve learned there’s a much bigger difference between religion and faith than I ever understood. I tried so hard to be perfect by prohibiting myself from everything that was ‘of the world’. I pretty much just cold turkey-ed my old life completely. It all exploded on me and I just couldn’t speak about something that I couldn’t bring myself to follow through.
- I never gave up my pride. I fear I never can. Or at least…I just don’t know how.
- I stopped taking pictures altogether for the last little bit. I started sleeping more. I got sick. Really sick. I busted up both my knees. It’s funny how the enemy kicks you when you’re down yet we try and find every other excuse to sit and explain it all. It’s like we’re giving him a get out of jail free card for hurting us.
- At Church last Sunday the message was for me. It screamed at me. It wanted my attention. But my eyes would start to water the very second I even tried to face God. I kept saying I wasn’t ready. I wasn’t ready. I’ll never be ready. But that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t just take the step anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever felt the cold heaviness turn my heart numb as strongly as it did that day when I completely rejected God.
-It’s not that I didn’t try. Every day I sat at my computer and started typing. I tried writing. I tried thinking of what was bothering me that day. But I never went to my bible. I never went to God. If he’s not in this…if my heart isn’t in him. I can’t expect to be able to speak the truth.
- If I’m being honest, on multiple occasions I’ve wanted to a bitch a bunch of people out on flickr. I’ve wanted to be nasty. I wanted to be opinionated and rude. I wanted to say things like “I respected you enough to write this on MY own description. You think you could have done that yourself. Instead of raping my comments with your stupid opinions.” I couldn’t even look past the negative discouragement to see the lives being touched. It’s funny how it affected me so much then but it only took putting myself in the shoes of that negative commenting person to understand and well…calm down ha.
-You know what changed it all though? My mother was talking about a couple of her friends who now have cancer. For the first time in weeks now I didn’t get scared or think of my own death and the uncertainty in that. I suddenly just felt this need to go…do something to help. I guess it was a little spark of the fire that I put out. The truth is no, I’m not perfect and never will be. No, I don’t want people who have followed the project to put all this trust into me because just like your youth pastors or friends or anyone really…I’m going to screw up. But people are losing their lives to cancer. People are giving their lives for their country. For people they haven’t even met before. People are losing their lives because of other people’s stupidity. I want more. I want to understand some of those people and their courage. And their bravery. The truth is I fell. And it wasn’t pretty at all. But in the end that’s part of it. I’m going to sound like a corny, motivational speaker haha but it really doesn’t matter how many times you stumble, all that matters is if you’re willing to get up and risk falling down again.