Greetings, all!

This year, I was not in SC for the annual fireworks on the bay and the beach, but I did get to spend some time with great friends here in MN for the holiday. We kept it low key [my personal favorite] and climbed on the roof and sat and watched all the neighbors and the local high school shoot off their lot. Fun times fun times!

Here is some documentation of the night's lights.

Enjoy!


The neighbors were very cooperative in being my silhouette models :)


I found The Southern Cross in the Northern Hemisphere sky!!!
...Actually it was the aftermath of a firework, but it DID look like The Cross, which I though was pretty cool.


A star? A plane? no, it's!---... a firework as it's bursting :) (that was corny I know)

-- ok I think the rest can explain themselves...

















-- and what would The 4th be without... Watermelon! yum yum yum.



Hope everyone had a wonderful 4th of July!!!

lovelove.

I wrote a blog a few days ago and saved it on my computer so I could mull it over a little before I posted it. I wrote it while I was frustrated and emotional, so I wanted to make sure it was speaking the right things. I’m not gonna post it. I think a lot of it was issues manifesting themselves incorrectly.

But I will use some stuff from it, because what I was talking about was truth, it was just said in the wrong way. So Anyways….

God has been doing so many new things in me and teaching me things I didn’t expect to learn yet. It’s great stuff, but I’m being fought a lot too. Like I said in a previous post, when the devil sees you coming into something that God has for you, he’s going to fight you as hard as he can. I talked to a friend lastnight who was discouraged about the awesome things God is doing in her life, because satan had gotten to her head. And it excited me, because that means the devil is fighting her over something… meaning she’s doing something right! How awesome.

One thing He’s been teaching me is the art of trusting even though there’s lack of knowledge in us.

Your head may not understand, but your heart was MADE to trust God, and, though it’s an extremely conflicting thing – to have your head and you heart warring with emotions – it’s so cool, because, when you experience a peace inside your heart that your mind, reason, logic, etc. don’t understand, it means you’re experiencing God. You’re experience a glimpse of what you were made for. We may not even realize it – it took me a long time to be able to sense it myself – but when we experience things that make our head go ‘tilt’, our spirits rejoice, because, thank God, we’re stepping into a type of communion with God that is so out of this world [no pun intended :)], it’s beyond this natural realm we see!

Anyway again…

He’s been bringing me back to Jeremiah 13 over and over again, when He tells Jeremiah to go buy a belt and wrap it around his waist and don’t let it touch water…

What would it be like if God asked you to buy a pair of shorts, put ‘em on and don’t get ‘em wet…without telling you why? Would you be willing to do it?

God goes through many different steps of telling Jeremiah what to do with the belt, and only telling him ONE step at a time. So after God has already told him 1. buy a belt. 2. don’t let a touch water. 3. go to the river. And 4. bury it in a rock crevice. verse 6 says “many days later, God spoke to him…”

How’d you feel if God told you to do these things that seemed crazy to you, and then was silent ‘…for many days’ before He told you why He had you do these things?

#1 – God didn’t forget about Jeremiah, though He was silent.

Sometimes in life, we have to trust God hasn’t dropped the ball with us, and just wait for instruction.

#2 - the timing of all this was crucial to what happened next…

God told Jeremiah to go get the belt from the rock crevice, so he did. When he found it, it was “ruined and completely useless”.

Sometimes, we have to sit and wait, because, whether God is allowing time for your shorts to get ruined, or something else to fall into place, He needs patience from us.

I’m a go-getter. I don’t like patience.

Or I guess I don’t like situations that require patience.

I don’t like waiting.

I don’t like not knowing.

I’m a mess.

But Romans 8:25 says “If we look forward to something, we must wait patiently AND confidently” … In your patience, be confident that God will come through for you.

So, after all this.. after God told him to buy a belt, then don’t let it touch water, then go bury it, then sit there with no explanation for who knows how long, then go dig it up again…. Verse 8 says “Then the word of God came to me”… and God told him why He asked these things of Jeremiah and what would happen.


Sometimes I complain when things don’t happen on my time table in life. I feel I’m following God, I want what He wants for me, and I’m [theoretically :)] willing to do whatever it is. But it’s the time aspect that always gets me. Thing don’t come fast enough. I always want to be on the frontline of things, but sometimes we have things to learn first. Sometimes, we think we’re ready, but we’re not just yet.
God knows that, if I knew steps 5 and 6, 1-4 would get left in the dust, and I’d get down the road and realize I missed something somewhere. Maybe Jeremiah was like this too, because there ARE stories, like in Jeremiah 29:5-7, when He gives the priests and prophets from the exiles step-by-step instructions for their lives up front.
Do this, do that, be this and go here and you will prosper. Awesome, but I would be dangerous with such things. He knows that. And maybe you wouldn’t be. I just know I would be.

When I had to leave Africa last year, my heart broke, and I couldn’t understand why God wouldn’t give me a peace about just STAYING there, though I had been invited to do so. I was angry when God told me I wasn’t meant to go to school just yet… Hearing the weight of the world’s words on you that ‘you have to get an education, it’s the only thing that will sustain you in the long run…’ and then having God say ‘not yet’…it’s hard, not to mention such things as financial provision for the future. How is ‘not yet’ supposed to pay the bills, right?

But God knows. He knows what you need. He knows what’s coming and He CARES about it.

After all, the reason for my anger and my nervousness concerning provision was because there’s something about God’s character that I’m not trusting. Something about His goodness that I’m not believing. I don’t feel like He knows what is best, and when He speaks to me and says go buy a pair of shorts and bury them and doesn’t tell me why first, I look at Him and keep walking because I don’t trust that He will bring something out of it.


I never mean to preach at anyone. It’s not my aim at all. I’m just sharing life… sharing the things I’ve learned in hopes that they’ll help someone else.

So if there’s anyone else dealing with similar things, know you’re not alone.

And if you’re dealing with the opposite – if you feel like you’ve been handed too much and you don’t know if you can take it – God will never give you something you can’t handle. You hear the phrase “I know He’ll never give me something I can’t handle, I just wish He didn’t trust me so much”… that’s true, I suppose, and kinda funny, but in reality, if He’s giving you something you don’t feel like you can handle, it’s because He wants you to take it to Him and ask for help. He says ‘in OUR weakness, HE is strong”.

Let Him help you.

Have hope today.

"The heart is capable of responding to things the mind can't yet perceive." - Bill Johnson.

I'm missing my coast today. Missing the beach and it's helpful beauty. So just thought of sharing some of my favorite shots. I've posted some of these photos before - forgive the repetition. enjoy :)


dawn patrol is one of my favorite times


I think this was post-Haley's Commit meteor shower last year. one of the better sunrises I've had the pleasure of shooting.


post meteor shower #2


winter - beginning of '10.


I love the worn look of piers. such a great subject


this little guy was my company one morning...wanted my scone. it was so funny.


4th of July '09 - nothing like fireworks on the beach. love it.


surfer watching - a favorite type of people watching of mine.


I've had this photo for about 5 years, but it never gets old. I love the gulls.


a rainy evening earlier this year. taken with my phone and the quality is horrible, but it's one of my favorite shots. I love the serenity it carries. plus, I just happened to have this nifty little black and white umbrella with me and I put enough effort into trying to take a picture around it blowing away every second!!!
haha it was fun. I laughed with myself a lot that afternoon.

I liked sifting through all these and re-finding different ones - they brought a smile to my face.

hope they make you smile as well. Go visit a beach somewhere for me!!!


lovelove.

Two things God is continually pressing on my heart lately are: the art of intimacy with Him and the importance of endurance in the spirit.

I'm surely coming to love the former.

I'm, thus far, not loving the latter.

God has been testing my discernment in the spiritual realm. In dreams, by waking me up in the middle of the night and speaking to me, by giving me tasks that i do NOT love to do. A relentless learning process.
The other day, I was complaining to God about how I'm tired spiritually; how I don't know just how much I can take. He didn't bring a verse to mind about how in our weakness, He is strong, or how I should cast my burdens on Him, He just said 'you're spiritually fat'. To this, Jessie replied "say WHAT!?", to which He explained how I need to build my spiritual endurance. He didn't mean it harshly, it's just the truth. I'm beginning to see that, when it comes to the things that, in the end, are the only things that matter, I'm spiritually shallow. Yes, this is something that you can learn to do more and nurture, but it's also something that's in you already. You start off with a spirit, but it does not start of strong. It's something you have to build. I hope I'm the latter.

This, of course, doesn't mean that He won't help you, or that you can't go to Him with problems. He, after all, is the Teacher you're learning from. In fact, learning new things will require you to 'cast your burdens' on Him. But to do so, you have to trust Him (don't know about you, but I don't like confiding in people I don't know and trust), and in order to trust Him you have to know Him.
In the verse that says "be still and know that I am God"...the Hebrew word here for "know" means "to experience". "'be still and experience Me'" is what He's saying.

Maybe I'm confusing everybody, but what I'm saying is, in order to persevere in gaining spiritual endurance,

> you WILL have to cast your burdens on Him

> meaning, you have to trust Him

> you have to know [experience] Him

> and to experience the true character of someone, you have to have some level of intimacy with them.

I don't mean to babble. And maybe I'm not dead on with all this. It's just what's in my heart...

The whole experience of learning intimacy with God has been a great adventure. It's been awkward and tiring and weird and fascinating and beautiful. I've been amazed thus far though at how strange it's been to experience intimacy with God, when really, it's what we were made for. To look at someone on the street and follow them with your eyes and, in turn, your emotions and desires, is quite normal to most. Your flesh is not weirded out by lust. And I'm at the front of that line. But the moment the One who created Love - who is Love itself - steps in and begins to show you what true longing feels like, it's awkward.
How so very wrong.

ANYWAY...

In the midst of all this learning and 'alone time' with God, my heart has begun to sense just how important my purpose, and for that matter, each and every person's purpose under the heavens, really is. I feel as if the course of my life is going to be ridiculously not normal, if we can define such a thing.

In essence, I'm coming to realize even more how important intimacy with God is for the sake of our spiritual endurance in these walks that we're meant to walk.
Everyone in America isn't meant to move to a village in Africa or see demons and such, but I believe that no matter what you're meant for, if satan sees you accomplishing the work you were attended by God to do - or even if he sees you begin to discover that purpose in the least - he'll fight you just as hard as he fights the international missionary, the worldwide pastor, etc.

You have a physical job to do, yes. And God has instilled desires for it in your heart somewhere, just like He's instilled a dire love for photography in mine, but these jobs are not our spirits' objective. I'm not meant to simply take a bunch of pictures I can't take to our next life with me. I'm meant to spiritually fight in the ways He's meant for me to. Being a photographer is a delicious icing.

Let's find intimacy and let's use it to find endurance. Satan isn't going to like it.


love to all.

Soooo I'm staying in MN for about a month with some grand friends of mine, just outside of The Twin Cities. I've been to the Mall of America once before, but Sarah and I took ALL day yesterday to scour the mall top to bottom. I didn't have my camera with me, but my handy dandy iPhone was present, as is the usual, so I decided to document pieces of the day and share. Enjoy!




our first order of business: fuel up. I ended up having 4 of these delicious iced coffees throughout the course of the day. It's not my fault they're only 54 cents per refill and flavor is free.


We got there just as the mall was opening, so there weren't many people. The theme park was certainly a ghost town early on - kind of cool.


Yes, we are at the largest mall in the US, yes this is the first store we graced, and yes, reading material was indeed purchased :) (though People Mag was not, as was intended, b/c they didn't feel the need to carry the latest issue, which had a great photography article in it I was looking forward to - just sayin')


documentation of my high disapproval of Sarah's purchasing a Sparks novel. Dear John, no doubt. Forgive me, he's not a favorite, by any means.


We did not go here today, but to all my fellow southerners, if you've never been to a Caribou Coffee, get on a plane and find one. They're kickbutt!


I was entirely excited about the mall yes, but a leading motive of mine, apart from spending time with my dear Sarah, was to enter the doors of this gallery once more. I may've peed my pants a little when I saw it. Photographers, if you're not familiar with Rodney Lough Jr.'s work, check him out. Amazing stuff, to say the least. http://www.rodneyloughjr.com/


Apple Stores aren't in high quantity in SC, so to find one was fun. I got to try my hand at an iPad. Nifty little thing!!


such a trip wouldn't be complete without a quick duck into a Disney store.
One of my favorite Toy Story characters. We share a name. We share many traits. this chick knows what's going on.


Cue kid-in-candy-store exclamation from Jessie...which embarrassed friend, Sarah, I'm sure.


colors colors colors!!


One thing I'd never had the pleasure of experiencing before my first MofA trip was...dun dun dun - Ragstock. fell in love, as was expected. My brothers call me a hippie. I don't entirely agree, but I did find a crazy great dress for $6 on this rack and then saw the sign up top. made me laugh.


in the course of the day, we stopped in to see a movie (in the mall theater, which, incidentally has it's own floor, yes. [maybe this is not very fascinating to anyone but me]). Killers. GREAT movie. you should see it!


I personally didn't think this looked anything like Marilyn.

Random.


what kind of day would it be without at least one bathroom pose, hmmm?


what kind of day would it be without at least one odd Magiquest mirror pose, hmmm?


I kind of thought this looked like Dora was trying to take down the ferris wheel, which made me laugh (again, maybe this is just me).


I got a bit loud when I found this shirt. Would've gotten it, but miss thing didn't know where the proceeds would go. eh.


People-watching definitely took place - what better place to do it!? It's my favorite.



There you have it, a random, odd, slightly pointless post of my massive mall day. The mall itself was grand. fun. etc. But the smaller things were better.

Like my laughing hysterically at the mall cop on the little stand-up roll-y scooter thing, and Sarah looking around like she didn't know me while I attempted to stealthily run after him to get a picture (I failed).

And then Sarah's little episode in the theater..... alls I can say is "AHHH! it tastes like poison!!!!" great laughs were had.



love to all.

First post since my vow to continue sharing my life with you, whomever you may be...
It'll be short, as I am packing fervently for a trip and running out of time faster than that. But Thoreau said, "Write while the heat is in you", thus this rambling...

An epiphany has just hit my head, or my heart, rather. Seems as though it's hit my head many times in the past, but I suppose my heart has just come into a place to receive it.

I have joy (not the epiphany), yes. And I share it with others (not it). But I'm choosy as to whom I bless with it. I realize I've felt as if it's mine to control.
(cue epiphany...)

It's not.

God gave me joy. Something that, as a child/teen, was sparse. Something I strove for. I was prophesied over in July of last summer that I would begin to experience great joy in the next few years in my walk with God and in my walk with others. OTHERS.

I have. It's begun, and I love it.

Why do I feel like, just because somebody has hurt me, broken trust, etc., I have a right to withhold contagious joy from them? It seems such a trivial understanding, once you understand it. gah, that's annoying.

Bill Johnson said you can't simply experience "Kingdom Joy" Spiritually. It will find a way to manifest itself physically as well.

Otherwise it will die.

Joy is given to a person for that person's use and enJOYment (<--see what I did there? baha), yes, but it was also meant to be used as a tool in your "spiritual tool belt", if you will.

I like my joy. I don't want it to die.

Don't let your joy die, please.


Oh and another thing (afterthought, sorry), if you don't have joy, and you want joy, try giving yourself away.

Give time. laughter. love.

love someone. love love love more.


serve. give joy to someone else. it will come back.

I haven't blogged in a month and a half.

There are a couple reasons.

Sometimes, you just have to take a step back and not try to give the world answers.
And then what's left are the questions, muses, and difficulties of life, and those are often something I keep to God and my journal.

Also, today, one of my favorite photographers, Jeremy Cowart, began a "hashtag" trend on Twitter called #vhv ... though he has not revealed what this abbreviation means yet, he asked his followers to accompany this tag with confessions of questions and voices that run through their heads all day and night;voices that discourage them from dreaming. thoughts that make them question their abilities to succeed and do well. I replied with a second-guessing that reveals itself often in my head, that I'm attempting to force myself into having the photographic eye needed to succeed in the art I love so much, but after this, I began thinking about other things, and it brought to mind my blog. Something that I haven't been doing for long and something not many people "follow". But I realized part of what has kept me from updating recently is this attack inside my head, saying "what you're writing is of no importance, and even if it is, no one sees it anyway". Many times I've gone to write an entry and the devil has gotten to me first. I fed up with that.

I also read a blog post by another favorite photog of mine, Scott Bourne, entitled "If I Were To Go Pro Today" and part of his advice is "do the first thing, no matter how small". He explains - in much truth too - how so many amateur photogs want to soar high so early, but need to realize you have to get up and make something happen, no matter how intimidated you are, no matter how much you think it's a waist of time.

This I believe applies to many aspects of life - even to my doing something as mere as blogging. and beyond..

It applies to faith - believing in the smallest glimmer of hope when everything sucks.

It applies to current circumstances - when life has become boring and monotonous. You can change that, and you're going to have to make it happen, but it's going to be hard and long. It's going to require changes in people around you, maybe work areas, it's going to require an adaptability in yourself, and maybe in your family as well. And all this will have to be done one small step at a time.

It applies to healing - when shutting down is easier than long roads of pain, and after experimentally taking one huge, exceptionally hard step in the right direction, you realize how much farther you have to go.

In so many ways, my life entails each of these in this moment.

But words of Jamie Tworkowski come to mind, "You're not alone. There is hope."

Maybe I can continue you muse publicly now, because those words are true.