Putting 'Christ' Back into CHRISTmas

I sincerely hope to be blogging must more over the next couple of weeks given I'm on Holidays. But for now I feel I must to a (n obligatory) Christmas post.

I felt more than ever a massive Grinch in the lead up to Christmas this year. I whinged loudly at the (hugely) obnoxious people who pushed in line at the car parks, (actually just at anyone in car parks in general, I have decided that before people get their licence they should be required to pass a driving etiquette exam.) Anyway, I hate Christmas music with a passion, (I pity anyone who works in retail over the Christmas season) and I left my present wrapping til the last minute. 

In fact I uttered those dreaded words this year " I. Hate. Christmas." I was with my friend at the time. He replied "But you're a Christian..?" 

Let me explain I hate the commercialism of Christmas, I hate that the billions of dollars spent every year could cut world poverty in half, I hate Christmas 'music' (note: not carols), I hate car parks (as I've mentioned), I'm not a big fan of the colour scheme, I hate that thousands of people every year miss the point.
I really hate the nonchalant secularism of it all "Happy whatever-you-celebrate" It's right there in the title 'Christ', Christ that what we're celebrating.

Obviously there are things I love about Christmas; Family, going to church, Christmas lights, descants, the opportunity to talk unashamedly about Jesus, and gingerbread.

But really I think that Christmas is all about gifts. (Stay with me here.) I know I said that I hate the commercialism of Christmas. However, there is a very big difference between buying a thoughtful/practical gift for someone you love, and buying $X worth of baubles/tinsel/decorations/ wrapping paper/cards etc that will get thrown away on December 26th.

I love gifts, I really love gifts (I'm such a child..) But not only receiving gifts obviously but giving gifts, things that I know people will love and use. I love making gifts and that rather selfishly satisfying feeling when someone says 'How'd you make that?'

But all that aside Christmas really is about gifts. It's about The Gift. Jesus. God send His son into the world as a human. Just think about that for a second, the awesomeness of God stuffed into the body of a tiny baby. A baby that would ultimaltly restorethe whole of humanity to God. 

How truly awesome!

Alive in five?

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Alive?

Unhelpful answers aside I got asked this question at bible study this week, and I have been praying for time to think about my future. So here we go:

I suppose the only thing that I've thought seriously about in thinking about the next  5 years is I want to be out of my parents house. Don't get me wrong I love my parents very dearly, but in five years I'll be 27 and really I don't still want to be living at home. Also I've made a promise to myself that I'll be out of my suburb by the time the train line comes though. (My suburb is getting a train line, that is meant to be done by 2020) So I'll be very disappointed in myself if I'm still living at home by that stage.

So in five years I'll be 27, it'll be 2019 and I would have finished my degree three years ago.

The most important thing to mention is that I want to be serving God; somewhere, anywhere. 
Whether in a church, paid, unpaid, as a missionary, overseas, here, where ever, however. 

That aside ideally I would be working full time making money off my photography. 

Here's the big dream (this is crazy scary to be even typing down): To be living somewhere in the northern territory (I loved the NT as a kid and would relish the chance to go back), maybe working as a missionary, or involved in the local aboriginal church. and to be taking the most amazing landscape photography on the side to be supporting myself.


So yeah that's enough big scary future thinking for now. 

(to future me: 'don't laugh too hard when you read this' - I'm sure God has bigger plans )

'Footnotes' - Lena Maria

I read this today, in one sitting. I couldn't put it down.

It's the autobiography of  Lean Maria Klingvall.

She has an amazing life story; she was born without arms and only half her left leg.

She went to the paralympics for swimming and has performed vocally all over the world. Woven throughout the whole book is Lena's faith. She overtly talks of her faith and (in the words of the book's blurb) 'pays tribute to the Creator who never makes mistakes'.

 I highly recommend this book as I've said I literally couldn't put it down, it was super easy to read. It's not a droning chronology of her life but short highlights and significant moments, written in a easy conversational way. 

Again I highly recommend you read this book. It's excellent!

Rain, rain, go away and bring us some LIGHTNING !

"It's raining, it's pouring, the old man is snoring. He bumped his head on the end of the bed and couldn't get up in the morning."

That really is a stupid rhyme. But it's raining... and i'm procrastinating getting ready to go to uni. I have this 'video for photographers' class this term and I have no idea what the teacher's talking about and Maggie doesn't do video.. (it's going to be a looonng term).

I have to do a 10-15 min documentary on any subject of my choice and I'm thinking about doing it on dance. And we have another one on an 'emotion' (such a cop out.) It's all arty and vauge and interpretative.... I thought about doing 'passion'.

Is 'passion' an emotion? What about 'strive' and 'trial'? Side note: my sister once had a discussion with some guys she works with that 'tired' and 'hungry' are not emotions. I would argue that they are feelings though. 

Emotions are such weird things. They are internal but expressed externally. They are so fricking complicated. It's part of what sets us apart from other animals, our emotions and our ability to communicate them to each other and to feel empathy for each other. 

I'm not in the mood to get all psycho-analysis on myself so I'll just leave this here. 

Check out my reasent work on instagram or my photo-a-day (more like photos-when-i-get-around-to-uploading-the-backlog.......) blog

God's Word's Awesome!

"Scripture is God's chosen means of revealing His character and will, to His people in every age."
Introduction to the Bible - Moore Theological college, Correspndance Course

How amazing is this? Like really think about it. The bible is the way that God chooses to communicate with us. We can read His word to us. Direct. God gave us brains to question, to wrestle with and to seek to understand him through his word. God could have just inserted his information into our brains like a micro chip. Bing we know all that we need to know abut him. But God reveals his character and will to us in His word the bible. It's relevant to all people though all ages, His character never changes and we can trust that it never will.

I think that's pretty amazing! :)

MYC

Just some photos from MYC; an amazing week of learning about the ends times from revelation, of meeting great people and fellowship together!

  

9

Ho hum :)

'Why are people afraid of their own blood'? And 'It feels like there in fishing line in my mouth'* are two thoughts that I had today. Welcome to my weird brain. Again  it has been a super long time since I wrote anything. I got really busy with wedding stuff in April and uni got really busy at the end of June. I don't remember what happened in May.....

There are some photos from the wedding here 

Also I finally got around to designing my own logo to watermark my work. I am still (not really) working on my website but I regularly post to my photography instagram account follow me here. (or here for day-to-day stuff).

Here and Here are some samples of my recent assignments for uni.

I have been thinking a lot lately about what I want to do with my photography long term, (and have come to the conclusion that I still don't really know). I know that I still don't want to do fashion or weddings.  I am leaning towards product photography and/or nature photography. I will see where God leads me.

I am no longer working for the dance company that I was working for, and am currently looking for work.

Ho hum what else? Next week I go away to MYC for the week

That's about it for now :)



*I had my wisdom teeth out on Tuesday 

Symbolism

I got this concept off something I saw online of a similar nature. I am really anti-smoking and wanted to explore advertising and product photography. I'm really happy with the results. 

Atmosphere

This was for my 'atmosphere' assessment :)

 I got a HD :D

Always a bridesmaid never a bride....

 Photos from Bec and Alex's wedding :

Mama bear and Papa bear

I made 120 of these as place names for all the guests :)

It was a wonderful day and a beautiful testament to the work of Christ in both their lives. 

:D

Logo :D

My new logo, I designed it myself the fonts are from Dafont. What do you think?

Journal prompt: Something you’re proud of in the past few days

Elephant Bride....

I really need to start writing more regularly. I Don't write as much as I used to or even as much at I want to. I miss writing, I know that I have been super busy lately but it's not even that. I feel there's an elephant in the room and if I write about anything else it would not feel honest or true.

 I guess the thing on my mind is pretty obvious.... Marriage. 

With two weddings this month and one next, (and that's just in my immediate circle of friends). The topic of weddings has been at the fore front of conversations lately (and by 'lately' I mean for months and months...) 

I guess what annoys me the most about the constant talk about this is not that we are talking about Marriage. But that we are talking about weddings. The rings, the ceremony, the cost, the colour of the bridesmaids' dresses etc etc etc 

I know that these people are serious about what it actually means to be married (well I think/hope so) But it has been annoying me so much. I am so not a detail orientated person. And over the years I have though very little about my wedding  (if I am to ever be married) About 2 years ago the extent of my thinking was; in a church with all my family and friends, 6 months ago it was I want to marry my best friend and now the whole thing is way too scary.
 The thought of pledging my whole self, to spending the rest of my life with someone actually terrifies me. I will admit that at this stage of my life I don't want to be married. I mean I'm not taking it off the table and swearing a life of celibacy and poverty. (Although thinking about it, life in a convent is preferable to crazy cat lady.....) But seriously when you speculate about your future when you're younger I don't think you think much about the weight of what being married really means. I mean I'm just not sure that the whole thing is for me. (I am totally not sure about this, my feelings on the subject change daily, hourly sometimes..) I am too stubborn, too selfish, too independent, too proud, too too many things that would not make a good wife... etc. (Yes I am aware of how reduculous that sounds..)

I guess one of the main things I struggle with is that people often look at being married as the goal. Like it's the 'next stage of life', tick that box, pass go and you're on the road to life. And those that are married, see single people as those to be pitied, I dread the day when relatives or friends start saying "Why are you still single"? (Like being Single is a disease) What does that even mean? I'm not even going to touch on  the ways that the things that that implies annoy me. (I hope that made sense.) 

I find the whole concept big and scary and confusing. Please don't be confused with my feelings about myself being/getting married and my opinions on marriage itself. I love the concept of marriage! So much, I really think it is a beautiful gift from God and a wonderful way for two people to express their love for each other in the way that God intended (yes I'm talking about sex) and live their lives together in service of God. 

I mean I know that there are people who choose to live their lives as single people in order to serve God, I personally think that's great. I mean Paul was single and look at the amazing work he did for God. (I also feel that's the most over used example in the book) But the flip side of that is I Think that people think those people are just conceding to being single. But yeah um.... Bleh My brain is a big confusing mess right now.....

Apologies I have all these thought about this and they are all jumbled about in my head at the moment and  with my friends wedding on Saturday, I feel like I have not done my thoughts and feeling about this justice. I sincerely apologise if I have offended anybody unintentionally I really just needed to get my thought about a little I am sure I will revisit these topics in the future.

Je Voudrais ........

 I have done this twice before and I thought it would be an interesting exercise to do again. About four year ago I answered this question on my private blog. The question is: "What do I want?"
This was written some time in the first half on 2010.
I want:

 My friends to become Christians, My Nana to get better, More guy friends, Just more friends, An SLR, A graphics tablet, A mini laptop like the one Audrey has, More music, For the tension in my extended family to go away, My Ps, A new job, To be more certain about the future, My Fridge girls to listen more, For the underlying tension in my group to go away, My drama teacher to stop being a cow, To be better organised/motivated, Better marks, More time, More money.

Well lets analyse this:
- None of my friends have become Christians,
- My Nana did get better that time but unfortunately passed away in July 2013,
- I started uni at the start of the year and I have made some new friends. 
- I do have an SLR It's a Nikon D80 her name is Maggie and I bought her for my course. 
- I did have a graphics tablet but it no longer works :(
- I have moved beyond the 'mini laptop' - see here.
- Fia did give me a couple of gigs of Christian music last year :) 
- About my etended family *sigh who knows but there have been two new additions in my family since then. My cousin had two children; a boy and a girl. :)
- I'm on my green P's  and have 6 months left til i'm on my blacks.
- Ah my fridge girls, :'( possiably one of the hardest things that happened over the last year, the girls that I had at the time of writing this (C, Z, E and Y) stayed with me until they hit year ten and then they got too cool. (With the exception of Y who now has joined the leadership team yay praise God!) We (I) thought that they were really solid and would see it through and then they just stopped coming. But I have a new group of year seven girls and they are really regular and a lovely brunch of girls that are really passionate about learning about God. It is my prayer that they still stick it out with Jesus!
- I think that 'the under lying tension in my group' may have had something to do with some one who is now no longer my friend. It was a really hard thing but she is now no longer in my life and I have moved on. My friends don't see each other much :( we are still good friends some of us have a book club and we meet once a month it's good to keep in touch with them :)
- Ah 'My drama teacher' OK so this was a huge deal at the time of writing but now is just silly drama that doesn't matter and has made me more aware of myself and the people around me. Things I learnt from this, people are very motivated but their own personal views, don't put yourself in compromising situations that may be misinterpreted but third parties and when you are attacked you find out who your true friends are.
- 'Ha!' That is all I have to say about this. This will defiantly be on the next list.
- 'better marks' see here. Hell Yeah!
- More time ha! Well yeah... I have less time now than I did then but I've found that I'm happier. I really love being busy and having things to do. I run on about 6 hour sleep a night but I'm loving life at the moment. :)
- Well this too, I think I poss had more money then as well but I scrape by.

Well looking over the last three year has been a very interesting exercise, I was and still m very materialistic, selfish and inward focused. Although I'm not to sure if what I want has changed all that much. With out any further ado. What I want now:

A macro lens, a wide angle lens, peace in the Ukrane, My laptop to have a longer battery life (currently typing on the icky macs at uni), a website for my photography, regonision for my photography/ people wanting to buy it, the time and energy to set up an etsy shop to sell my craft, to know what God wants me to do after uni, to meet new people/make new friends, to be more organised, to be more self motivated, to have regular sleep patterns and a body clock, to see my friends from school more, to have more patience, to have a better memory, to improve my photoshop skills, to be more bold about Jesus, to write more, to get something published (in any medium, pref photography), to travel, to do mission work over seas, to learn other language fluently, to open up about myself more, the missing plane to be found and the people to be alive, peace in Korea, for anything caffeinated not to run straight through my body, a distinction average, at least a 3.0 GPA, a better sense of direction, a better memory, to read more, to be better imformed about the world, to have more impormed political views, a better memory, a new phone (esp with a better camera), more comments on my blog Oh and did I mention a better memory?

Dice shoot

How to be a Fantastic intern

In case you weren't aware I have now been a photography intern for over month now. It's been a slow learning curve but I feel like I've come a long way. I would like to share my wisdom. So without further ado, here are Shell's 12 tips for being a fantastic intern (in no particular order):
1) Learn how to make coffee and memories the boss's coffee order.
2) Learn how to iron and use a steamer, you will be using them a lot.
3) Always have pins, safety pins, sticky tape, sissors and  blue rack readily available, if not on your person at all times.
4) Always remember to put your phone on silent.
5) Remember: "Early is on time, on time is late and late is fired"!
6) Always put something back in the place you got it from!
7) Remember to eat and stay hydrated!
8) If you don't know what to do ask the person in charge 'how can I help?'.
9) There is never nothing to do. If you feel like everything that needs to be done, is done then clean something (then you'll look super efficient).
10) Always wear pants with pockets (even better wear a belt with carabiners)
11) Know where the pens, paper and sewing kit are.
12) Get everyone to sign the release form as first priority, before production starts!


There will be many more things that i will learn along the way but here is just what i have learnt so far :)

Swim/stand in God's faithfulness

I has been such a long time since I have posted on this blog. I should post more regularly. I have however, been posting daily on my photo-a-day blog.  I am quite excited about this project even though I have fallen slack on the daily journaling part of it.. :( 

Um what else is new?.... I got an internship! Yay! My boss is pretty awesome and is really happy with my work thus far and I fairly certain she is a Christian. So that is going well. 

I am also seriously considering going to bible college, either via correspondence or night classes, but I want to start now! Mum suggested that I wait one term to see about my work load, so I'll go with that but I am anxious to start. I talked to some really great people at Next Gen, from Moorling and SMBC. I am leaving that in God's hands.

Speaking of Next Gen... It was amazing, like: crazy, exhausting, my brain hurts, my heart hurts, I feel condemned, God's Grace is wonderful, kind of AMAZING!

The talks were on Nehemiah and 2 Timothy. The morning speaker was Greg and he spoke on Nehemiah, and as I was saying to Dan and Kat he has this amazing way of making you feel absolutely  crap and sinful about yourself and then saying but wait there is GRACE. 
We have a wonderful gracious God who forgives our sin and has washed us clean of any and all sin. However, this does not mean that we can go on sinning something that really struck me was "Do not confuse God's grace with His gracious will for you." God calls us to live a holy life. With the calls of this world this is not easy... I was really challenged during this week to confront my sin, in particular to look at my sexual sin. No one is immune and we need to take up the fight to live as Christians in a sex saturated world. 

Our God is a gracious and faithful God. Something else that struck me from the week was we need to revel in God's faithfulness. Stop and wonder at the awesomeness of God swim in the sea of his faithfulness and stand in awe of his faithful love.

Aren't metaphores wonderful? 

But seriously God is awesome and I am really looking forward to youth ministry this year, I am super excited to see what great hings that God will do in and through our youth this year.

Yeah that's it for now :)

The journey thus far

❝

You didn’t get a testimony on your own - God gave it to you. Whether you give God glory or not for it, He gave it to you and enabled you to tell it to others. Your testimony is valuable.

— Rev. Brian Bowen


My testimony.
I have a million and one excuses not to tell my testimony: I don't like talking about myself, I don't think my story is very interesting, I suck at self evaluating, I have a terrible memory.....
But I have the most important reason to, to tell others about Jesus. So to those excuses I say: My testimony is not about myself, it is about Jesus, every story about someone coming to know Jesus and seeing His work in their lives is amazing, it is amazing that he chooses any of us, I do suck at self evaluating and I do have a terrible memory but God knows my story and He will use it for His glory.

There are parts of my story that I am not proud of, that I will forever regret, but instead of leaving them out, I will let God use them as he chooses.

My story starts out as many Christian testimonies do: I was wonderfully blessed to grow up in a Christian family, my parents and sister knowing Jesus. As a kid I went to Sunday school and Kids club. I loved all the old testament stories, Joseph, Moses etc and I wasn't bad at reciting the memory verses. I remember when I was about 12 I heard somewhere that "you are not a Christian just because your parents are, that you must make that decision for yourself" and sometime after that I became a Christian. I recall sitting on my bed with a gospel of Mark and writing the date that I gave my life to Jesus. 

You see my conversion story is a simple one I knew that I had to make a decision to follow Jesus for myself, I knew all these things about Jesus, becoming a Christian was an easy choice.

However my journey from that time until now has not been smooth sailing. There are times, time and time again that I forget about God I push Him away for weeks at a time, I am sinful and unrepentant. 

At high school people knew I was a Christian but I didn't live a radically different life. In my group of friends I was one of two Christians. My friends at school  lived (and still live) very different lives to me. It was hard not to get sucked in to the things of the world. I love them dearly and it is such a struggle not to envy them their lifestyle. I am getting ahead of myself. 

Forgive the disjointedness of the rest of my testimony as things didn't really happen  chronologically from then on, these are various chunks of learning different things about God and about myself that I think are relevant to the story.

 In year 7 I was amazingly blessed that my best friend from primary school (who went to a different high school) invited me to her youth group (I had been going to the one at my church but it was very small and had no one my age). So I went and long story short I have never left. I learnt so much at 'Cactus' and what eventually became 'Fight club'. I have always been inquisitive and with our youth pastor Dan no question was off limits. I loved it so much I wanted to know everything! Looking back on this time I feel ( and I still sturggle with this now) that I knew much about God but I did not know Him. I could answer all the questions correctly but it did not effect me I guess. I have often struggled with the concept of head knowledge vs. heart knowledge. I know about God but I struggle with the personal relationship, the relationship that I can have because of Jesus. Jesus who stuffed all his great and awesome magnitude into the body of a tiny human so that he could die to take away my sin. That truly blows my mind.
At the end of year 9 I was asked with a couple of other people to join the leadership team at the younger youth group. This has been an awesome opportunity for me to grow and to walk in my faith. 

There is more to the story and I am not proud of many things that have happened. After high school I decided I wanted to serve God in camping ministry, I had  decided  that this was the best way for me to serve God, I was going to serve him this way whether he liked it or not... so I spent two years of my life not really doing anything because I had chosen that I knew best and this was what I wanted for my life. I thought it would be great I loved the outdoors, kids and Jesus. I didn't listen I was hard hearted, God kept telling me no time and time again that he knew better and had great plans for me. But I am stubborn and at the time I hated  hearing Jemimah 29:11  (For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future"), it ended in quite a lot of heart break and disappointment. I ended up saying to God look really what do you want from me all I want to do in serve you with my life and you are stopping me. But God is more faithful than I could have eve imagined and he placed me where I am now studying photography and loving my work. I am not God He knows what is best for me.

The summer holidays after high school I met a boy and we started dating, I grew to love him very much. But we fell into a lot of sexual sin and were much more physical then we should have been. I thought that we would one day get married. I pushed God away time and time again. I knew what he demanded of me and I pushed Him away. We eventually and inevitably broke up. I was hurt and angry at God and full of guilt and shame, but our great a awesome God has been faithful to me time and time again. He constantly  reminds me that I am totally and completely forgiven because of Jesus. Because of Jesus I am made totally clean and have a clean slate with God. There are some song lyrics that God recalls to my mind whenever I need reminding of this.

"When Satan tempts me to dispare and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see him there who made an end to all my sin."


I guess it was a slow road of coming into a deeper understanding of God and truly accepting what he has done for me. I still struggle with many things. But God has always been faithful to me. That is a very brief account of the work of God in my life so far. I hope that I have done it justice. And that through it you made be blessed.

Loving Being Busy!

It's been I long time since I've posted anything here a lot has been happening and I've been really busy, practically drowning in uni work.
I went to my sister's graduation last Thursday.

Last Saturday was recital, so adorable. They all went the wrong way, got most of it wrong and I didn't even know the dance. But it didn't matter! It was a great fun and even got a complement from my boss. So yeah it was pretty awesome :) the 2-3a 'did fly a kite' and had pink Tutus and the 3-5s did fave things and had black and white tutus. They were all soo adorable and I was so proud of them.

The flowers are from my boss and from Tiana (one of my ballerinas).

And the picture of  Belle is one of the pieces I submitted for my illustrator assessment. I was very proud of it. Even though I unfortunately only got a credit for it... boo :(