My summer in pictures..

They're a little out of order, and I've decided to let them be self-explanatory.. let's just say, it was a good one :)

that love thang..

It's a typical evening. I've just gotten off work a couple hours ago, showered, and successfully dilly-dallied around until it's past time for me to go to bed. But instead, I want to write. I'm not sure what about though. It's not that I don't have enough, it's that I have too much. You know, like when you feel like you could burst with emotion and just want someone or something to hear you out for goodness sake. Well, here it goes.

Several ideas float through my head, and two very strong emotions make their presence in my chest. 

Love <and pain>. Two-sides of the same coin. It's strange isn't it? And isn't interesting the way we've screwed it up? It possesses incomparable power, and is probably the greatest force on earth...

Oh good, Merlin agrees with me.. (great movie btw).

ANYWAY, it's no wonder in our imperfect, selfish world, we are constantly walking around hurting one another and being hurt. And the worst part is, we almost always hurt most the ones we love the most! The other Sunday, I went with some good friends to a church service in Manhattan. The sermon was spot on. He talked about human desires that we were created with, with intent to be fulfilled. For example, the desire for intimacy and greatness. We all want these things, but always try to fill in the "void" with something else...

 I can't help but feel that the desire we want most is to love and be loved. If we don't feel this it's the most soul crushing, empty feeling ever. The point of the sermon was to continually give these desires back to God so that He can fulfill them. I think we most often choose not to however, out of disbelief. We don't really believe God can do what He says.

 I think He can.

He never said life would be easy, or painless, but He did say He would always be here, ready to help us through it. Sometimes, we just need to allow ourselves to feel what we need to feel and cry out to God or maybe even be angry at Him, as long as we ultimately open our hearts and our hands back up to Him to receive His healing love. 

It's amazing the things we will do; the drugs we will ingest, the beautiful body we will mutilate, the bitter heart we will create, all in an effort to avoid pain. Maybe we just need to start believing that God can handle what we have to give Him. I think as soon as He begins to heal us, and we begin to loosen our grip on the offense or offender that created our pain (sometimes being ourselves), we will be able to love others a little more purely, and without as much expectation.