A beautiful contradiction.

No, I wasn't playing the air guitar.  It just looks like it.

--Ecclesiastes 3:12
I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.
--Ecclesiastes 7:14
When times are good, be happy; but when times are bad, consider: God has made the one as well as the other.

Interesting, this photo is.  Who would have guessed that in this photo I was actually quite the unhappy camper?  It's almost laughable, really.  Just look at this photo, what was there there to be frustrated about?  I actually had a rock and was tossing back and forth from hand to hand.  You know, King Solomon, the author of Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, as much as he messed up during his life, he really had some good insights.

--Proverbs 15:13
A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.

I was walking with Brittany and felt that it was about that time I throw a pitty party, about time to crush my spirit.  I'm in a real strange place of transition.  In one week I will have been dating a girl for 6 months--coughwhat?  Already?  It's been amazing and all but Boom, there it is.  6 Months.  That's crossing the threshold of getting into something serious.  I can't wait to see what it brings, but even going into it in the best of circumstances, there is still the unknown ahead and that can be an intimidating thought.  I just graduated--WOO!--but now what?  I've been asking that question for 2 years, and still I have no answer.  I'm applying to seminary, who knows if I will get in?  Tick...Tick...Jobs, let's not even get started about those.  And money?  Yeah, what the world revolves around, well it's not in my pockets.  Plenty to freakout about, right?  Bring on the rain.

Yet, there's just something not right about that.  Why is it that I can't just be happy being UNhappy?  And why is it that that fact makes me even MORE unhappy?  Maybe I am just crazy.  What is it that God wants me to learn about joy?  In fact, it Okay to be in this state of mind--Ecclesiastes 3:4, Psalm 56:8.  I am not completely sure how to soak it all in, but one thing I do know is that Satan is just as scared, if not more so during these troughs.  Take it from Screwtape, a devil who teaches other devils about Christianity--and how to wreck it,
"He [God] leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish.  It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be...He wants them to learn to walk and therefore He must take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles." (The Screwtape Letters, pg. 40)

My 17 month old niece just took her first steps, and we're all so proud of her.  It would have been impossible for her to make those steps on her own if she weren't left to try it herself.  I can guarantee you everyone was just as happy to see her TRY to walk as we were to see her actually walk.

Through much encouraging, she's finally going on her own!

Anyway, back on track.  All that to say that it was easy for me to walk ahead of my girlfriend (who was still in a good mood), to focus on the rock in my hand and not the gorgeous blue sky that has been placed in front of me, but the real time of growth comes when I decide to slow back down and look up.  There's so much to see.  We can choose to be unhappy, but the joy that is ignited from within us by God can be covered, but it will never burn out.

--I now proudly have access to a green screen and a pretty nice lighting kit--more about that to come.  I can't wait to really get my hands on it.  I know theses past 2 posts have been wordy and somewhat depressing, but no worries.  I finally got everything together for grad school and I'm working on building a website from scratch for my dad.  I've got some exciting opportunities presenting themselves, such as in February I'm going to Ghana for 2 weeks, so this blog should still have plenty of eye candy for those of you who only visit for the art.  But, when all else fails, I'll still always be a real...

And that's plenty enough for me.