God's purposes for a young person's life go way beyond getting a bachelor degree and a spouse. desiring a purpose and a lover is natural and good, but i'm thankful Jesus loves me enough to pull me aside and show me that in him, i have both a purpose and a lover of my soul. even if it is the most disorienting, frustrating, discouraging and identity shaking lesson to learn, i am so tired of feeling unaffirmed and lonely because i can't live up to my own expectations- and i know that's something God doesn't want me to go on living with.

today

posted today , november 10th

-

out of the things i have either have a great aptitude for or just purely love, 

drawing, writing, exploring, speaking, singing, guitar playing, acting, FILM…

i chose animation as the thing to study. and sometimes i am confused by this path i’ve stumbled upon- and i often have a really heavy longing in my heart to just follow film or just follow…i don’t know. anything else. drawing doesn’t come as easily for me as the other things, but i am good at it and really love seeing how i have grown the past few years and i have learned a lot about myself, how to persevere, how to trust God, and how to be disciplined. it is still a process and i’m thankful for my weird journey this far that has side tracked me several times to learn more and more about myself. whenever things in my life come to a hault- i am initially very discouraged and full of self doubt. but i’ve seen that these situations often turn out to be events that lead to me knowing more about myself, and having more peace and confidence with who i am/what i can do/where i might be in the future.

i chose animation because it is, as i can see this far, the best possible way for me to incorporate all aspects of my creative outlets in one. it has been frustrating because i have so much to learn and i can only teach myself so much on my own. i've gone from being a big/odd fish in a small/differently odd  pond, to being a fish without any pond at all. I desire to learn from peers and mentors. but God hasn’t given that to me yet, and i don’t know if he will. I can’t even see if God wants me to stick with this- I try really hard to learn on my own and try to discipline myself artistically- a lot has come out of this semester, and it’s not over yet. my CalArts deadline is January 4th (i think) and other schools are Dec 1, and later in the spring. I have no idea what is going to happen and I can’t even tell if I am close to being prepared. It is difficult not having likeminded artists and instructors around me to help me out- that’s why i left my old school in the first place!

so. will you please pray for me, to have an overflow of the heart and mind in my art making this 1.5 months, so I can confidently put my best foot forward, and rest in whatever result- rejection or acceptance from any school, that I did everything I possibly could by completely putting my trust in God by being obedient with my time and actions and concepts… i need help and i need a movement in my spirit. i feel trapped a lot of the time. thanks so much for your support and love the past year. will you please ask God to break me and build me up to the best I can be for my portfolio submission. will you please pray for peace and no more doubt/confusion/reluctance.

thankya friends

snapping out of the affirmation blues

posted 2 days ago

God has been faithful to take away the idols in my heart that i’ve been clinging to for inspiration.

also in the past couple weeks it has become crystal clear why i am in colorado and not in California. 

i am finally okay with admitting i’m not ready, i have been seeking affirmation in all the wrong places, and that is why art has never been freeing for me, as an adult. i am not being affirmed by what the spirit of Jesus is doing in my heart- and i have been caughtup in whether I will be made adequate in the eyes of other people- i have discovered with my art that has been my biggest priority. 

i have tried to cleave as much as i can to philippians 4:8 “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

even though the world has been kind of rotting around me. family life is so extremely heartbreaking lately and i feel helpless to fix anything, because i absolutely know i cannot fix a single thing. all i can is try my best to love. and lately i want to spit in anyone’s face who wants to give me advice on dealing with my family because they don’t understand, and it’s between me, God and my family now and i am becoming increasingly ashamed of asking for outside help because i think i have begun to violate my family’s privacy. it was one thing when i was 3,000 miles away in a different state, but now i live in the same city as them. 

i want to shake off all of my self pity and live life as the free person i truly am, live as though i am not condemned, which i am not. i want to continue to leave all my sin and shortcomings behind, because I love God and i want to live a life of obedience to express my love for him. I am tired of the rotting world, of sex, of cynicism, of compromise, of daydreams, of fantasy, i just so desire for the true restoration of the world right in front of me. i sigh/swoon over the glory to come, and who God is going to have made me/my friends/my family even a year from now. I have no expectations any longer, which at first was the most painful bandaid to rip off, but now I have complete peace being clay in the potter’s hand. And I want to shake off any excess self pity and emotional baggage that doesn’t serve me well any longer. I have peace with not going to CalArts if that’s what it comes down to, even though it might sting. I have peace with not being the best, and I also am coming to peace with being starkly different from the artists around me who i compare myself to constantly. This weekend it felt as though I had snapped out of a spell. Suddenly I realized:

Yes. I am good at art, I am great at life drawing, my ideas are worth talking about and i have a gift with communication.

Yes, a lot of what I feel deep down and need to get out and express are extremely different and unlike what is popular. 

Yes, it’s okay to detest modern art, and I don’t have to become like them.

It’s okay to not have a thousand followers on my art tumblr, and people going gaga over my artwork.

I have a truly teachable heart that needs tobe even less defensive about my ego, but even more approving of my own artwork regardless of whoever else, or if no one else believes in it or likes it.

My desire to be completely affirmed by people around me, or by a school, people i don’t even know and don’t even know me, is a recipe for total emptiness of heart that absolutely needs to be replaced by a powerful overflow of joy and confidence that comes from being totally and completely affirmed by who Jesus has created me to be, and what he is doing in the world. If this doesn’t take place, I will never truly love art making, writing, anything, i will never truly love or respect myself because people’s love is fleeting and conditional. although I should always strive to make my craft absolutely excellent, I should do it for the glory of the one who made me, not for bringing glory to myself for what I have made or learned.

I can’t imagine if I were alone in California having the same struggle I have been having lately, and watching my family trudge through what is going on from a distance. I would have been completely crushed, broken and alone by now. But wow, seriously I am so blessed to have had all of my plans completely backfire in my face- and who cares if I have maybe embarrassed myself in front of peers of mine who might have thought, “I kind of knew it was a pipe dream,” or “i kind of had a feeling it wasn’t going to happen.” I used to care a lot. It was a huge feeling of rejection and failure, wondering if I had come this far because of my own pride or because of God’s providence.

I know that absolutely it was God’s providence. of course my pride drove me as well, but that’s going to probably even be a life long process, but right now he is digging it out of the depths of my heart and showing me how truly harmful it is for me to take approval from men, instead of living out of the approval i already have. it’s insane just because i always thought i knew that lesson. but there are layers of defensiveness in a person’s ego, to defend ourselves against being confronted with our nature of being estranged children of God, alone and enslaved to sin. the key word being: alone. unworthy of love. unable to receive love unless maybe, build something out of our own heads that might hold a feeble candle to the richness we have lost to prove we are worth something- anything. I am blessed to have seen straight through myself into knowing it doesn’t matter how good I am at art- my heart is dissatisfied with myself and no amount of human praise will ever be “enough” to ease that heavy feeling of inadequacy. 

so praise God for revealing to me that I am affirmed in his love and work in my life. I feel that things are already starting to change and I am making art as an overflow of that - things have been more relaxed. I need to be driven still, so if you pray will you please pray for me to fervently pursue artmaking, joyfully, this last month and a half until my portfolio for CalArts is due. I am also applying to other schools. God knows where he wants me, but i want to put my best foot forward for his glory, and to get into the practice of loving God, and loving art because I am free in his love. it is a very, very foreign concept to me- confidence in the Lord, pertaining to my actions. i am absolutely not there yet at all when it comes to art but things are finally moving.

thank you for praying for me if you have prayed. love you friends

oct 19

recent journals i thought i should post here:

i am finally sitting down to map out my deadlines for school applications, and i have had some tea, and my brain feels frazzled, i have bitten my nails so now they are jagged, and now i can’t stop picking at my face with my sharp jagged nails and it hurts a lot but i am stressed also i am losing my hair again (it looks nice longer like it is right now, but i knew this would happen) so i am going to have to start taking rogain again like freshman year!!! idk why i am losing my hair. freshman year i think it was stress related. perhaps it is health related. i just have a very delicate scalp ugh. but really like when i take a shirt off or something, i see like 5 hairs float in front of me that were torn off my head in that gentle touch to my head… and blowdrying my hair is awfffffulll . 

anyway i need to organize my life i have no idea where i am going to be in 6 months. need mercy, clarity, commitment and courage. sigh. helpp.

1 week ago

posting recent journals i should share here:

one of the worst states of heart is when you can hear the screaming sensation of helplessness and worthlessness over the powerful truth of being affirmed, loved and cared for no matter what. all life haults in this state of mind and nothing seems to move forward - even if things are moving, you are too asleep inside to notice. believe that you have a future, hope and love outside of the failures you think define you, even the successes that aren’t so dazzling that define you. i’ve got to stop comparing myself to my peer group and thinking i’m behind. i am more helpless & depraved than i give myself credit for, but in the Lord, it is a precious place to be, because he gives me all i truly need that has nothing to do with social hurdles. i think God pulled me aside to  renovate my heart that has always been just as desperate, but has been seeking out the wrong things to prove my worth. as long as that takes for me to learn, i have to be okay with because I’m never going to be okay with myself until I believe the truth, that I am affirmed, loved and cared for no matter what, regardless of what i deserve. 

about that keeping in touch thing

well! i have been really poor at keeping up this blog and i am really thankful and humbled that people say they've checked in on here to see how i've been doing. i want to apologize for not keepign in touch. i have journaled some on my tumblr, but not here. basically: since my last post on this blog, God has given me an incredible amount of PEACE about not being in california, and being in Colorado with my family. he has made it very, very evident why I should be here in the past months. He has provided in every way for me, socially, financially, academically and spiritually (although it has been a very different season of life compared to the past 3 years). emotionally he has also provided, because the beginning of my time here in colorado I had the worst mood swings, and I felt so inconsistent with my identity that there were days i felt very lost and untrusting of what I was doing with my life. I saw (and still, often see) myself in the midst of all of God's providence, and looking at myself, knowing that I was the weak link. so much that God has given to me, but still I can't take advantage of it to the fullest. I am taking a Westminster Confessions class at my church on wednesday nights, which has been incredible when it comes to laying out the foundations of reformed faith, and exactly why we believe then with scriptural evidence and opposing arguments. i have been learning a lot about things i have never really even wondered about before- and in the beginning of this class, it honestly shook my faith in God when it comes to his sovereignty vs his love. kind of typical struggle i guess for a Christian at some point- but i think it's a good and necessary challenge to think about. i felt estranged from God- things that were once so familiar, seemed very unfamiliar. but i heard someone say once that when you are in a season like that, have hope in the Lord because it just means that when you finally find your way back to familiarity, your knowledge, love and fear of God will be all the more rich. So I really have hope in that, but it has definitely been confusing.
i am going to post a few journals i have written sort of recently that I realized really belonged on this blog and NOT on my tumblr (because hardly any christian friends of mine follow that, but i am on it more often to brood about life haha). Tumblr is a very dark place sometimes and I recommend to those who do not have a tumblr, to not get one for the sake of your heart/mind/spirit, chasing a Philippians 4:8 life.