I've really struggled with this post. Do I write it? Do I share it?
Here's a little context:
I'm really passionate about equipping people to be passionate about life and for them to be engaged with the world that we live in.
I love how people have engaged with issues like social injustice, but I really struggle with the over glorification that can sometimes occur.
I've been given a heart for people, and a heart for capturing and creating beauty. I always knew that God would give me a way to walk out those things together.
So, as a response to the things that I've been walking through for the past little while, probably my whole life, my creative outlet has become an outlet for my heart.
In 2013, a portion from all of my photography sessions with Ehjae Photography and from all of the sales from handmade creations with Kahana Jewellery will be donated to the Saskatoon Interval House. http://saskatoonintervalhouse.org/
A couple of weeks ago, I was asked to share about the jewellery that I create and my heart behind it.
I really struggled with that, because I don't really want my name to be associated with these things.. But I found out later that sharing actually spurred someone else to also donate some of their sales to a worthy cause. Which brings me to where I am now.. Really torn. I was meeting with a really wise woman the other day who in response to my struggle simply said, "If you want it to be about you, it will be. If you don't want it to be about you, it won't"
I think way too highly of myself. Who cares? Like seriously.. get a grip.
All I care about is spurring other people on to love and good deeds. If I have to feel like a pompous idiot just by sharing because I want to let others know that they can also use their God-given talents to be culture-changers, I accept that.
So please... forget my name. Forget my words.. just remember this:
"Whatever you did for the least of these, you did for me."
Wednesday, March 27, 2013
365 days of less.
I was just looking at the mess I call my room.. and wondering where to even start.
I have accumulated so many things, so much stuff. I really don't need all of it. It's dumb. Not to mention the fact that I don't use half of this stuff AND I know that my life will be so much less stressful with so much less clutter.
SO I did what any normal, sensible person would do. I asked Google.
I came across a blog (http://www.365lessthings.com) in which the blogger gets rid of something every day. I love it. I want to do it too. So I am. For the next year, I am going to give away or throw away something each new day.
I'll try to post a picture or post what I am getting rid of.. just as a way to keep myself accountable. We'll see how this goes.
Check out 365 Days of Less to watch the progress. Fingers crossed!
I have accumulated so many things, so much stuff. I really don't need all of it. It's dumb. Not to mention the fact that I don't use half of this stuff AND I know that my life will be so much less stressful with so much less clutter.
SO I did what any normal, sensible person would do. I asked Google.
I came across a blog (http://www.365lessthings.com) in which the blogger gets rid of something every day. I love it. I want to do it too. So I am. For the next year, I am going to give away or throw away something each new day.
I'll try to post a picture or post what I am getting rid of.. just as a way to keep myself accountable. We'll see how this goes.
Check out 365 Days of Less to watch the progress. Fingers crossed!
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
Renovations on a dungeon.
Down in the dumps.
Feeling blue.
Not quite myself.
One of my favourite characters puts it quite eloquently as being in the "depths of despair." (Thanks Anne Shirley)
One of the things that has always frustrated me in my life are those moments when the darkness creeps in.
The joy that I so easily embraced suddenly becomes contaminated by that tar-like void that seems to contaminate and seep so quickly that suddenly I am suffocating in a quicksand pit of despair, loneliness and depression.
"Why?" I always ask myself. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Yet, sometimes I do, but I don't know know how to change my behaviour. Instead, I allow the lies and shame to seep in further and isolate myself from people who love me, who can and want to pull me out of the pit.
A couple of dear friends have been challenging me by being transparent and sharing about their struggles. How often do I admit out loud that I don't know the answers, that I am struggling to even think about picking up my Bible, and *gasp*, sometimes I just don't want to go to church. Yet at the back of my mind, that truthful voice is telling me that this has been where I discovered my joy, love, freedom, family, salvation, hope, truth, grace and forgiveness for even the darkest, most shameful, disgraceful moments in my life.
I've been challenged and humbled by my own words. I've often said that we are weakest when we are isolated from each other. We were made for community, to grow together, to love together and to to be weak together, which actually makes us stronger. Yet, in the past couple of weeks, a true hypocrite, I have been isolating myself and avoiding the people that I need the most.
More of my hypocrisy: It would be so easy for me to spend an hour looking up wise words and think of spiritual ways to guide and help my fellow-downers through this journey. I would come up with an eloquent way to express how I had entered into and then defeated the darkness that I had supposedly now conquered.
I haven't conquered it. I won't. I'm not the one who will defeat it. Scratch that.. I'm not the one who HAS defeated it.
This post is not about my great thoughts or revelations on the Bible. This is about my weaknesses and being transparent.
I am still struggling.
So once again, challenged and humbled, I am writing to expose the darkness that has been overwhelming me and to ask for help. I can't do it on my own. I've been trying to do it that way for a long time. But it's so clear that that's not the way to do it.
Yet, in the midst of this pit of despair, there has been a peep hole of piercing light. It never fades, and the warmth that emanates from it is almost delightfully painful in comparison to the emotionless, cold, dark corner of the dungeon that I have chosen for myself.
God has never left my side, and I know that he is the reason for my hope and the peace that has never left my heart amidst all of the craziness that has happened in my entire life.
The beautiful thing is the simplicity of this truth and revelation that first broke through the wall around my heart( and it continues to do so every day) :
It is the moments like these, when we are shamed, naked, starving and covered in our own filth, that Jesus says, "Yes, I love you. I choose you."
And that is how my God turns my dungeon into a palace.
Feeling blue.
Not quite myself.
One of my favourite characters puts it quite eloquently as being in the "depths of despair." (Thanks Anne Shirley)
One of the things that has always frustrated me in my life are those moments when the darkness creeps in.
The joy that I so easily embraced suddenly becomes contaminated by that tar-like void that seems to contaminate and seep so quickly that suddenly I am suffocating in a quicksand pit of despair, loneliness and depression.
"Why?" I always ask myself. I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Yet, sometimes I do, but I don't know know how to change my behaviour. Instead, I allow the lies and shame to seep in further and isolate myself from people who love me, who can and want to pull me out of the pit.
A couple of dear friends have been challenging me by being transparent and sharing about their struggles. How often do I admit out loud that I don't know the answers, that I am struggling to even think about picking up my Bible, and *gasp*, sometimes I just don't want to go to church. Yet at the back of my mind, that truthful voice is telling me that this has been where I discovered my joy, love, freedom, family, salvation, hope, truth, grace and forgiveness for even the darkest, most shameful, disgraceful moments in my life.
I've been challenged and humbled by my own words. I've often said that we are weakest when we are isolated from each other. We were made for community, to grow together, to love together and to to be weak together, which actually makes us stronger. Yet, in the past couple of weeks, a true hypocrite, I have been isolating myself and avoiding the people that I need the most.
More of my hypocrisy: It would be so easy for me to spend an hour looking up wise words and think of spiritual ways to guide and help my fellow-downers through this journey. I would come up with an eloquent way to express how I had entered into and then defeated the darkness that I had supposedly now conquered.
I haven't conquered it. I won't. I'm not the one who will defeat it. Scratch that.. I'm not the one who HAS defeated it.
This post is not about my great thoughts or revelations on the Bible. This is about my weaknesses and being transparent.
I am still struggling.
So once again, challenged and humbled, I am writing to expose the darkness that has been overwhelming me and to ask for help. I can't do it on my own. I've been trying to do it that way for a long time. But it's so clear that that's not the way to do it.
Yet, in the midst of this pit of despair, there has been a peep hole of piercing light. It never fades, and the warmth that emanates from it is almost delightfully painful in comparison to the emotionless, cold, dark corner of the dungeon that I have chosen for myself.
God has never left my side, and I know that he is the reason for my hope and the peace that has never left my heart amidst all of the craziness that has happened in my entire life.
The beautiful thing is the simplicity of this truth and revelation that first broke through the wall around my heart( and it continues to do so every day) :
It is the moments like these, when we are shamed, naked, starving and covered in our own filth, that Jesus says, "Yes, I love you. I choose you."
And that is how my God turns my dungeon into a palace.
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