Why are you wasting your time?

Year: 2009. Place: Kenya. Yet the words still ring clear in my head.

"I feel sad for people here," I said to a Kenyan guy close to my age who had become a friend. "I wish that you all had houses and clean water and electricity all the time, and enough clothes and shoes. I wish I could help more and give more."

He replied, "I feel sad for you too. You have too much. There are too many things distracting you every day, and you don't have to rely on God as much."

Truer words could not have been said. Sometimes I get jealous when I hear about people traveling a lot to other countries, cruises, the beach, Disney World, or just around here, because I don't have enough money to travel much. Sometimes I am sad that I'm not living in my own apartment or with friends. I forget how much I do have sometimes. I forget how much I am blessed sometimes.

I believe that the Holy Spirit inside of me is like the nudging in your heart, the conviction, the voice like a conscience that doesn't really come from you yourself. And sometimes I feel God saying, "Why aren't you talking to me about what's on your heart? Why aren't you laying your burdens down at my feet and letting me fill you with peace? Why do you doubt that I will answer your prayers? Why do you assume that you have no say in the way thing turn out in life - I want you to ask me to change things! Why do you sit for hours on the internet, listening to music, being on Facebook, or other random things? Those thing will just leave you empty. And if what is on your heart is so important, why do you neglect to deal with it?"

I read the bible and see endless stories on God's perfect timing, and His plan that is different from ours, but is better. And yet I still wonder if it will be that way in my life. I still wonder if I'll ever get married, if I'll ever have kids, if I'll ever have a job I like or that pays more than minimum wage, if I'll ever have a real job in photography... and sometimes when I talk to God about those things I just feel sad. Sometimes when I pray for the people I love that don't know Him, the realization that they could go to hell makes me cry and ache. Sometimes I look back on things that have happened in my life that still hurt me and it makes me mad that God let it happen or hasn't helped me get over it completely. Oh, yeah... those thing called emotions that run rampant. Sometimes that's why I am distant from God.

But He is real. He loves me. He protects me. He guides me and answers prayers and provides for me. He brings me beautiful friends and He blesses me with so many things, that to only focus on the negative things in life is nonsense! Real emotion is brought forth in any friendship and relationship as well, and it is no different with God.

I don't want to let the noise of life down Him out. I don't want to be complacent and just trudging along in life. I want Him to be so loud that nothing else brings me down.

Easter

Easter.

 

Gymnastics pictures

I took these pictures April 20, but honestly it feels like much longer ago than that. Time is slowing down for some reason, haha. Oh well.

It was so cool to take pictures of these guy shooting video for a commercial that will go in the movie theaters!

I am so...

I'm so thankful and excited for a friend who is going to start working with me, and she started this week! I'm so sad for my other friend who is leaving from work in a few weeks to go to another Starbucks. When you work so closely with someone for a year, it's tough to see him go, and although it's only 20 minutes from my current Starbucks, it's more like 40 minutes from home. I'm excited for some upcoming things I'm taking pictures of! I'm frustrated because I don't see how I will ever have a real job in photography. I miss some people - some that are living far, far away, and some that I see every once in a while for short amounts of time, and "hello" and "goodbye" are the extent of our words. I'm happy to be on leadership with my bible study now! I am unmotivated and unfocused on moving forward with my photography website and I don't even know why. I keep getting distracted by facebook, Spotify, youtube videos, and countless other random things.

Ah, such basic words to describe how I am feeling, but sometimes words don't describe the depth of feelings. My feelings are all magnified and exploded in complexity.

I do know one basic thing... it's 3:45 AM and I'm hungry, so I have to go to bed now. :-)

Random

It's weird when you think you know someone so well, and then find out something about them that makes you wonder if you know them at all.

One of my coworkers is leaving soon to go to another Starbucks. It's sad. He's been at my Starbucks about a year, and I'm sad to see him go. It is another reminder that you never know how long someone will be in your life, and that you should really cherish those who are in your life right now.

I keep getting caught up in something late at night like editing pictures, catching up on tv shows (like Glee), reading a book, etc. and then going to bed too late... and then every morning being like, "Ugh. I just want to sleep more." That's got to stop.

#RandomPost #whatevs

Pictures of friends

It's one thing to take pictures of pretty flowers and sunsets. Awesome. They're beautiful. But lots of people can do that.

My next try with my new camera was of some of my friends. I couldn't get good pictures of them playing ultimate Frisbee because my camera didn't zoom enough, but also while it was taking the time to focus it would miss a good shot. So I tried putting it on action mode... and I still just wasn't getting good stuff. So, I have to work on that. As far as the people pictures went, some were great! Some were not. I found it frustrating to switch between different kinds of modes depending on the lighting and having to brighten it up with the aperture, but then missing things like kids. Or it was fuzzy.

It's weird to feel so comfortable taking pictures forever, and then suddenly this new camera makes things difficult. But the result of the good pictures are awesome!! Also, two of my friends used a picture I took of them for their facebook profile picture and one got 49 likes and the other got 65. Sweet!

I have more things to take pictures of soon, and if everything falls into to place I will have some AWESOME and unique pictures coming up soon.

I've been making a website on wordpress and it's taking forever and a half. Oh yes, I paid for the template, and for the website itself, but putting everything together is still a ton of work, and why does it have to be so complicated? I paid for it because I wanted it to look professional, but also because when I fix it up right, it will show up on google searches. When I'm almost done with the website I will make and order business cards.