For this week’s photo challenge I decided to go with nature. Enjoy!
Weekly Photo Challenge: Blue
23
Author Archives: Joy
Better than a Hallelujah
Better than a Hallelujah
By Amy Grant
God loves a lullaby
In a mother’s tears in the dead of night
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes
God loves the drunkard’s cry
The soldier’s plea not to let him die
Better than a Hallelujah sometimes
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
The woman holding on for life
The dying man giving up the fight
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
The tears of shame
for what’s been done
The silence when the words won’t come
Are better than a Hallelujah sometimes
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
Better than a church bell ringing
Better than a choir singing out,
singing out
We pour out our miseries
God just hears a melody
Beautiful, the mess we are
The honest cries of breaking hearts
Are better than a Hallelujah
Reflections
Look beyond the surface
Beyond the noise
Past first glance
There you will find
The reflection
‘Where’s my backpack ?’ is running a photo challenge as this week there has been none issued from the Daily Post.
Related posts:
Reflections – Chronicles of Illusion
Reflections – Where’s my backpack?
Five Minute Friday: Identity
On Fridays over here a group of people who love to throw caution to the wind and just write. Just five minutes. Unscripted. Unedited. Real. Your words. This shared feast.
GO
Before reading today’s topic I was up on my soapbox talking about raw beauty. When seeing the parallel between my post and the topic I was excited.
I wish I could say that I find my identity solely in Christ. I want to. But that wouldn’t be entirely true. I’m better than I once was, but I’m not there yet.
So where do I find my identity? (Let’s name just 5)
My writing.
My relationship with my husband.
My children.
My work.
My family.
When those things fail me or make me feel less than valuable (which they inevitably will), I run back to the arms of the Father, thanking Him for being my refuge.
I want to do that even when everything is great in all of the other areas! I want to read my bible more and view it as a letter from my Savior. I want to look forward to being able to study His teachings and promises.
And though I long to be in His presence, sitting quietly while soaking up His splendor, I do not seek out the truth in His word nearly enough.
I, at times, make myself an island, hiding behind my computer screen and getting lost in online reading, writing and picture editing.
My identity has been one of confusion and change. However, more and more I see myself settling into the place of my Lord and finding great fulfillment and peace in His sovereignty.
STOP
1. Write for 5 minutes flat – no editing, no over thinking, no backtracking
2. Link back here and invite others to join in.
3. Please visit the person who linked up before you & encourage them in their comments.
Raw Beauty
“Beauty is a short-lived tyranny.” ~Socrates
How do you define beauty? How do the people around you define it? Especially the 13-25 year old crowd?
My 14 year old daughter came to me recently with a copy of a popular magazine in her hand. “Mom, how can I look like this?!” she asked.
“You can’t.” I answered. “This is not reality. This is an illusion.”
“You’re just saying that!” she exclaimed rather passionately.
Oh the drama that is a teenage girl searching for her place in a fallen world. How can she ever find it when she is surrounded by images that falsely portray perfection?
This is an argument as old as time. Should beauty be important? Does God care about beauty? Is it a sin to want to be beautiful? Is it ungodly to pluck my eyebrows, shave, have nice hair, wear make-up? My answer to these questions is, “Yes. God cares about beauty. Otherwise, I think, He would have made the world colorless and with much less detail. I truly believe the answer relies much on your definition of beauty. No. It is not (in my opinion) ungodly to accentuate your beauty.”
(I realize that there are a million different opinions for these questions and a scripture to back up each one. Many of them, I have heard. Please do not waste your energy sending me hateful messages about how God wants all of us to be ugly and poor.)
After making excuses and suggestions, I realized that Bella has seen the Dove ads and the how-to for Photoshopped images many, many times and she still sees that as professionally done (which they are.) I had to make this personal…I did what my ego hates…there was no other way…after all, this is my daughter and her friends and my friends and friends of friends. This is the very reason that I speak openly in conversation, workshops and seminars about a 12 year battle with bulimarexia.
I had to remove the veil of post editing and show her what a real person looks like without any touch-ups or enhancers. I knew that person had to be me.
So, I asked Chris to take a head shot of me with a 100mm macro lens. A lens specializing in all of the tiny details that one would otherwise miss. The point was not to have a perfectly set shot, but rather, a spontaneous moment, as one would capture in day to day life.
I must admit to you that I did not even like the fact that my physical flaws were so exposed to my husband! My vanity does not want him or you or my children or anyone to see the fine lines (or pores on my face) for that matter!
However, it is no longer an option for the number on the scale, the size of my jeans or the fact that my dimples have turned into lines, to define me. To find my identity in such triviality is not only foolish, but possibly fatal.
I did not use Photoshop on the images. I used Aperture. The goal was not to morph into a super model, but rather show how easy and quickly a simple editing program can “fix” my flaws.
As shallow and self-absorbed as I once was, I never would have thought it possible that I now agree with Audrey Hepburn when she said, “The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mode but the true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives the passion that she shows. The beauty of a woman grows with the passing years.”
Before touch ups using Aperture
After touch ups with Aperture
So to my friend who asked me the other day if I ever take a bad picture, I will say again, “It depends on how much time I spend editing.”
Related Post:
“Does this make me look fat?”
Love
While trying to come up with an incredibly deep and meaningful title for this post, that would be sure to grab the attention of anyone who glanced my way, the one word that kept coming to mind was, “Love.”
My mind will not slow down long enough for me to write something that expresses what is happening in my heart. As I think of my friend, her body being ravaged by cancer, I want to vomit. I don’t know what else to do, but come to this blank page and start thinking out loud.
At the same time, selfishly, I want to give you something that will leave you thinking that I’m brilliant. Something that will touch you so deeply that on your death bed you will think of this post and find peace. Crazy, right?! I know!
God forbid I just admit to the fact that everything I have written in the last 24 hours has sucked! I’m a work in progress. Egomaniac with an inferiority complex remember?! I want you to like me even if I don’t like you…and yahdee yahdah.
Funny (and not in a haha sorta way) thing is, I cannot put 5 words together to form anything worth your time it will take to read it.
As I sat upon my pitty pot of self-delusion, I did what anyone else would do in my situation…I checked my email. Forget actually trying to sleep. I may get an update on my friend’s condition and I cannot miss that…or wait until morning to read it!
There, in my email was a picture of a handwritten note from my daughter. Ironically enough, it was talking about love. Now, I realize that she is a lovestruck teenager who daydreams about her knight in shining armor, in other words, Justin Bieber, but I love what she wrote. Simple. To the point. True.
I love this kid! Her heart is so deep, her motives so pure and her faith so beautiful.
She doesn’t believe that. She thinks she is a nuisance. Now that may change tomorrow, but for tonight, she sees herself as something to be tolerated. What?! How is that possible?!
She told me between sobs what was troubling her. It made me ache. I want to fix it. I can’t.
“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.” ~Mother Teresa
Sometimes it feels as if all I am doing in love is hurting, while other times it is pure bliss. As I try desperately to get to my vague point, here is what I have been thinking about love since speaking with my Bella;
How do you find it? Does it find you?
Once you find it, or it finds you, how do you keep it?
While keeping it, how do you explain it to others?
Simple, but not easy…You live it.
In every thought.
Every word.
Every deed.
Every action.
Every response.
Don’t see this as an impossible feat. See it as an inspiring challenge…to love without getting tired.
Take every thought captive.
Think before uttering a word.
Act from a place of kindness.
Love really is the root of it all…or it should be anyway.
It’s where the adventure begins.
Once the search has begun, it is a lifelong journey, there is no going back.
It’s going to hurt and
It’s gonna be messy
but
It will also be wonderful and filled with purpose.
I’m going to be okay…
Bella will be okay…
You…will be okay.
“Love to be real, it must cost—it must hurt—it must empty us of self.” ~Mother Teresa
Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused
Though my eyes began to cross after looking at pictures out of focus, I like the challenge this week. It goes against everything that I consider “great” photography.
Thoughts flash through my mind like, “What if someone who is seeing my work for the first time thinks that this is what I consider acceptable?”
I then realize how silly that is. Anyone who is creative knows that the best way to become better at your craft is by being the willing student and viewing the canvas of the opportunity as if there is no box in which to conform. For some of us, in order to do that, we must approach life through the eyes of a child. What better way to do that than at LEGOLAND Discovery Center?
That said, here is my interpretation of unfocused. I’m not going to title these. I want to hear your guess on what they are.
Always remember to play. If it’s the best way for children to learn, why not for those of us who are children at heart?
This post was inspired by a prompt from WP Daily Post: Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused. You may curse or cheer this week’s theme. We’re looking for that picture which is unfocused. It may be completely intentional, or accidental. You might have thought about trashing it, but in the end it definitely conveys something.
~Be sure to visit the comments section of Sara’s entry for fellow bloggers interpretations.~
Even A Girl Like Me 