The Power of A Photo

I have a confession to make. I have a really bad obsession with taking and printing pictures. Like, a real bad obsession. If you are a good friend of mine, this you know and have made fun of me for it.

It's really because love to capture moments. I love being able to look back through a photo album and remember what was happening before and after the photograph was taken and all the memories from those events. Pictures take me thorugh a journey over and over again that I so often forget. Because it is so easy to remember just the hard times right? When things get hard, you only remember the hard or get angry when you do rememeber how good it used to be and it isn't any longer. Pictures help me remember the best parts of life that I choose to forget.

I was taking a trip back through some photos and came accross these two. They were taken within the same week of each other. In the first one this was at my best friend Christi's lake house. We were celebrating the bachelorette party for our best friend Lauren who got married that next weekend. She is the first of the three of us to be married and we have long awaited this day! What a celebration of the people that God calls together for his glory.

This other one is of me and my two best friends from college. This was graduation night and oh my, was that a great memory. We all felt on top of the world after finally finishing up our ridiculously hard semester and four years of college. We had a bond you can't even describe.

I looked at these and just sighed. I looked at them and sighed because this was the last time I remember being really, really happy. A friend that made my heart leap at just the mention of his name. Feeling like I get to take on a new world after graduating and excitedly awaiting the unexpected for a job and living space. Celebrating with the best two girls in the world the union of a beautiful couple. My heart was so full I literally couldn't handle any more. These pictures make remember so many moments that I didn't capture with the camera even. That is why I love pictures.

Memories are great aren't they? They are powerful enough to even bring back emotions, even if for a brief time that you forgot how to feel. But a word of caution: life is not meant to be stuck in a photo. You can so easily remember how good or bad it used to be, but you can't go back. You can never go back to that happiness, and luckily you can never go back to that darkness. It will get both better and worse. Time changes, but pictures don't. They are reminders to what we have been given in this life that we never think to be thankful for or learn from. I desire more than anything to go back and be that soulfully peaceful and joyful again. But we can't go back, only forward.

 So keep taking the pictures (you know I will), but let it only become a memory of what you have been given. You can't go back, so walk with open eyes into the moments you are in now and doing what you can do make even better memories instead of dwelling on past ones. Because living a life in the past keeps you from living in the present. We must choose to live in the present.

Don't Be Such A Wuss

Think hard about this question: when was the last time you took a real risk? It doesn’t have to be a risk that was life changing, but something you had to think twice about. Maybe you risked driving your car on the icy roads thinking you were invincible (like I did, which turned out to not be a good idea). Or risked asking someone out on a date having no idea what the answer was going to be. What was your last risk?

Part of living a life full of meaning and a great story means that risks should be involved. I have read a book very recently that has inspired this revelation, The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. On the surface this book talks about overcoming writer’s block to unleash the creative mind. It is based upon the act of resistance in our lives and the many forms it comes in. Ironically, writer’s hate to actually write. It takes time and effort and frustration to put our glorious thoughts on paper in such a way that we are satisfied with, so we just don’t. And it is because of resistance. Resistance is created when we figure out what we are passionate about or when we realize what we are called to do. We see just what must be done to get there, all the work, sweat, and sacrifice and then that is enough to make us quit. With writing, a writer has the great epiphany of an amazing story or piece of advice. All the words are written down in their head and they can taste the final picture of it. Then, they realize just how many hours of sitting in front of a computer, and editing, and re-writing, and drafting it is going to take. The conclusion: not worth it.

I thought this was brilliant in the book because as one who is trying to be a writer, resistance wins nearly every day. But then that got me thinking about the concept of resistance and began to expand it into my everyday life. Anytime I realize that there is something I am called to do, resistance does whatever it can to hold me back. When I know I am called to forgive, the more I want to be stubborn and not do it or prolong it as long as possible. I’ll find every reason to not speak to that person until the last second or until it is too late. Then I am full of regret and the “what if” situations.

Pressfield says that the greater the resistance, the more important that dream or task is to you essentially. The greater the resistance, the more you know you should do it. Resistance is an enemy, but also your friend. It’s confirming to you what you should be doing, yet you are not.

I have gone on far too long letting resistance win. I am tired of it and have already wasted years and seasons of my life because of it. But no more. I have to start risking what I desire to do and who I am called to be because resistance is making me miserable. This summer I will be taking one of the greatest risks of my life so far. I should have done this a year ago, but I found a million reasons not to. I have no idea how my situation is going to work out and how I am going to make it, but I have to take that risk. If I fail it is because I chose not to resist what I know I am called to do. If I fail at least I can be happy at the end of my days knowing at least I tried.

So what is it that you desire more than anything to do? Are you doing it? Why not? It seems impossible right? That is Resistance’s favorite sentence you know. Look around you and the world, aren’t other people doing that same thing or have in the past? OK, well obviously it’s not impossible.

You want meaning? You want life? Don’t be a wuss and just take the dang risk. Who knows, you might even end up happy and be granted the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

P.S. This should be a hint of the risk I will be taking ;)