Monthly Archives: July 2018

Grace over Ability

Posted on by under Longer thoughts

Observation: When I don’t feel fully alright with God, I start getting annoyed when someone at work is better at something than I am.

Why is that?
Because when I’m not feeling well I start trusting my own performance. Or rather, as soon as I look away from God I start trusting it. Parts of Gods wisdom we can recieve in our lives and it just becomes logical; we learn sentences or behaviour and its absorbed into our lives. Other people can as well, not even knowing where it comes from. But grace can not continue without Him.
Because:
1. You need it anew every day.
2. It is not built on logic.
If you turn to your own brain it will draw its own conclusions. Grace is not in ourselves, not in us by ourselves. Look at it. (Keep looking at it.) Set your eyes straight.

July 24th

Posted on by under life

I just worked a 14 hour shift on 4 hours of sleep, and I’m like HIGH on something, it’s like time is no longer a concept and I just called my friend because I needed to TALK and then I couldn’t stop DANCING around the kitchen because it’s like my feet won’t stop MOVING. My friend says it’s sleep deprivation. Maybe.

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(Here is where I sat during break today, breathing in the sun)

(Randomly, SONG OF THE DAY is Whatever it takes by Imagine Dragons, the bridge to that song is like ahhhh) (I’m sorry, excitement makes me drop all my adjectives)

(Also sleep deprivation gives me so much inspiration, I need to stop and slow down and go to sleep but I just want to write and do stuff and okay bye)

The Mona Lisa

Posted on by under Longer thoughts

Isn’t it messed up that Leonardo Da Vinci never knew he painted the Mona Lisa? Like he knew he painted a portrait of Mona Lisa, but he didn’t know he painted The Mona Lisa. It’s funny because it used to motivate me to think that every step of his career led up to that painting. That the first stick figure he made was the first draft of all those things he would later create. It helps me to create casually. Even if your creation sucks, it’s practice for the next one. (That is practice for the next one.) And so on.

But then, you never quite reach it. In my head there will come a day when it’s no longer practice for the next one, because I’ve actually reached that point. I’ve made it. But the truth is, we never arrive there, we never know our Mona Lisa. Because it’s not like Da Vinci just painted it and then hung it in the Louvre. He probably just started preparing the next canvas. As far as he knew it might have been just another painting in a long line of paintings, and he never reached “it”, or got “there”, wherever there is.

Creative Endeavors

Posted on by under Longer thoughts

Today I was reading in an interview about how writing a novel is like giving birth to a baby, which I guess I’ve heard before and don’t we always describe creative endeavors as our children in some very lovingly pretentious creepy way.

But what’s interesting is that whoever was interviewed mentioned that if you don’t want a child, don’t get one. Like if you don’t actually want a kid, just don’t get one. Don’t get one because you should or it seems like something that would look or sound nice; Get a kid because you actually want one. You can write your story, paint whatever thing, but like, you really don’t have to. Like, that pressure is made up.

Now, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it just because it’s hard. If you want to, you’ll have to know that you’re getting into something that’s a pretty big deal. And you’ll have to know that “want” does not mean a sudden flow of emotion that makes everything suddenly easy, but rather that you know that this is something you want to do, regardless. But it’s also a joy. And yeah, you should do it if you want to.

(The interview I was reading was from The Creative Independent, which completely unsponsored is like the best website ever, and they send me these cute emails with articles and – you know – general life advice. Below is todays.)

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Height of summer pt. 2

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It’s warm today. Hot and not really humid like Florida, but still so much worse because it’s not like this is a country where we have AC. I couldn’t do anything I wanted to after coming home from work, could barely stand because it all just suddenly hit me and my body’s never been good with radical temperature changes. I was just laying on the couch, not doing any of those productive things I had planned and felt bad about it. But then I was thinking about how much grace I would’ve had upon myself had I for example been sick. Yet there are so many other situations that actually affect me worse than ‘normal sickness’ but where I don’t allow myself to be excused. I think that for some reason – when analyzing myself or my situations – I look so much inside of me that I generally isolate myself from my circumstances. But we live in our circumstances. We shouldn’t be victims of them, but not acknowledging them leads to self pity in a different way. It’s good to sit down and feel what you feel. Disappointment over something. Fear about something else. We need to know our starting point and own up to ourselves, otherwise we can’t go to where we want to be – or even be where we are.

Sunday Thoughts

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A few weeks ago I had the vision that waves were rising all around this garden, tall and mighty. Like the ocean, like the red sea. And I felt it tonight, standing out there. (And I wondered why it is not falling, why it is not crashing down on doubts and enemies, what are the waters waiting for?) I felt God saying that He’s separating me from it. I am learning to not be all the things I’m not. And first then the water can fall on my enemies without falling on me. How can God kill the army if we’re on the ocean floor at the same time? There’s a height and width and depth to the importance of faith in forgiveness and the death of sin and it being killed off in your own body.