Don't Hide

Everyone has dreams and talents. Gifts that they can use. But a lot of people don't really use them. At least, not to their full extent. They hide them away in a little box, sometimes even from themselves, because they tell themselves that there are other people who are better. Though in some cases that may be true, there is something important that no one ever thinks about. You're the only person that's you. You are the only one that has your ideas, your thoughts, your mind. So while skills in things vary, you're the only one who can think up certain things. Showing who you actually are is a risk, and finding who you are in this world is a hard road. But some risks are worth taking, and some journeys are required if you ever really want to be happy. So don't hide who you are, especially from yourself. Find and embrace it, because you'll be a lot better off if you do.

On a different note I'm sorry for not posting yesterday and for the shortness of this post, I've been extremely sick for the past week and haven't had the time, energy, or even the level of thought I would normally have put into anything, so I apologize that it's late and not very long. I hope to have a better one on Friday.

~SoR

Stories

There are millions of stories out there. Books, movies, old legends, etc... A lot of them have a lot of things in them that are really unnecessary, and there are quite a few that really have no meaning to them what so ever. But still, there are a lot of stories that do have meaning, and there is a way that it can tie into many things, for authors, film makers, and other groups who enter the realm of art. As a writer and artist, being part of the church group has always made me very cautious about what I write and draw. But here's the thing. Everything you do should reflect not only who you are but what you believe. There should be a recognizable style of the individual, and a readable meaning in each piece of work. This however doesn't mean you have to be as restricted and careful as many people would have you believe. There are a lot of people who say any sort of magic in a book is witchcraft so they can't read it. But I myself have read many books containing magic with an undeniably christian meaning behind the story. There are lessons in everything, especially books. Stories are an important part of a persons life from when they are just little kids. So wouldn't it be a writers job to make sure they are teaching the right thing in their stories? Or a singers job to make sure what they are singing has a significant meaning to it that is designed to help people? A lot of what people read and listen to is full of garbage and meaningless words, or worse, damaging words. The moral compass of the world keeps getting further and further from pointing north. Why is that? Perhaps because people don't learn what they really need to learn. They don't understand what's right and wrong. Art, music, books... Most of it is full of poison, but everyone drinks it willingly. Why? Because the poison is mixed with food and all they know is they're hungry and that the food is there in front of them. Too many Christian authors sacrifice good stories that would interest a lot of people because they think that it's bad to have say... An alien race in the book because God doesn't talk about making any other intelligent beings in the universe. Or that a character who has magical abilities is wrong because that would be witchcraft. However, there is something that's very important. You need to look behind the story. Because that's all it is. A story. Something to feed the imagination. If you look behind the stories and read the meanings, then suddenly you'll find yourself looking at everything that happened in a different light. See what was really going on that was hidden before. While there are a lot of books like this, sometimes the authors are Christian, sometimes not, there isn't enough good meaning in stories anymore. At least, not in the ones people read. But why don't they read the ones with good morals and meanings in them? Well, think of it this way. A lot of Christian books are very dry and not all that entertaining, but they have some very good morals to them. Then there are books that are all spiced up and are very interesting to read, but with bad morals behind the story. Books are food for the brain. I've heard a lot of people talk about how healthy food tastes bad. But it doesn't have to. You can make food that tastes way better than most of the stuff around today that is much, much healthier. So why can't we do the same with stories today? The fact is we can. The two most important things to a book is first a good story, second good morals. Too many authors focus on having good morals and not so much the story that the story loses most of what makes it interesting. Sure it's got a good meaning, but the book isn't going to grab the attention of many people. You want to create something that nearly everyone can and will read while at the same time it contains a lot of good lessons, or even just one good lesson. We shouldn't sacrifice one for the other.  We should have the normal, and at the same time, something different. But not just different something more, something better. Like if you walk down the street wearing a cowboy outfit because you think that's what you need to do to be a good christian, people are going to avoid you. However if you wear just normal clothes, but the way you live reflects Jesus and his love towards others and yourself, then people will notice you not because of what you look like, but because there's something different, something more. That should be the case with stories as well.

I hope you found this post interesting, helpful, and understandable.

~SoR

Love, Faith, and Courage

What is Love? It isn't just some nice feeling you get when you think about someone. It's not just some meaningless emotion that has been labeled to be something special by misguided people. There's a reason that it's been projected this way, and that's because Satan doesn't want real, true love to be seen or understood in any way. He wants us to keep living a lie that we believe to be truth so that we never harness a power that is infinitely greater than his. Real love is so much stronger than anything he could ever do. However, there are also so many different kinds. It's something that's hard to understand unless you look it up in say... Hebrew. Because the English language decided it would smash all the meanings down into one word. Yeah, how helpful is that? It makes things incredibly confusing sometimes, wouldn't you say? I won't even pretend to understand all of it, I'm still quite young, and I don't think anyone will ever understand everything there is to know, or even know everything there is to know. Why? Because there is one person who IS Love. But He is infinite, which makes it just slightly hard to learn everything there is to learn, since of course He never, ever, ever ends. However, here is what I do know. Love isn't something that just goes away. But it's not something that just stays either. You have to build it and take care of it, or it will fade. But it's strong enough to last through testing and trials. Love is stronger than anything, but like everything else we have to choose it over fear. Something that I have observed, experienced, and been taught by some very good people is that love and fear can't exist in the same place. If you trace back something that happened in your relationship with someone, anyone, and it ended badly or the relationship was never what it should have been, almost always it can be traced back to some kind of fear. Love pushes out fear, but fear also pushes out love. You have to choose which side to stay on. That is where courage comes in. Even if you are afraid, you can choose to move with love and courage, to beat fear and force it to leave. If you think about it, faith is similar to courage in that way. Faith isn't the total absence of any doubt. Because there will always be some measure of doubt in your mind at some point, just as there will be some measure of fear at some point. So how can you have great faith? By trusting. By choosing to trust in God, who is Love, and to move forward in what he has planned. Just recently I gave a drawing to someone with a note written on the back. I didn't hardly know the person at all, didn't know what was going on with them, and had written the note and done the drawing before I ever talked to them. But for some reason I felt that they needed it. I had doubt, but I trusted what God was asking me to do and gave it to her. Just from the reaction on her face I could tell she needed it. But even doubt is back to fear. Fear that you may be wrong, or that something bad will happen, or that nothing will happen. Courage and faith go hand in hand with Love. You can't have any of them without the others. Isn't that perfect though? Three things that cannot be separated, just as God is a trinity, and while can be addressed in three different ways, cannot be separated from any of the others, because He is a three part being. So to get the fullness of Him you need all three, just as to get the fullness of Love you need all three.
     That bunny trailed off in a direction I wasn't planning on, but getting back to the main point; love is something that needs to be practiced, built up, and strengthened. We need to learn how to love everyone despite things that they have done or are doing. That doesn't mean you have to just roll over and ignore the problem. Help them see the problem and try to fix it if they're willing. You can still love someone without doing anything to help them except that. Loving them. But it comes from a place of trusting God, having the courage to do what's best for everyone, and most of all listening to what God has to say, not only about someone else, but about yourself. If you don't listen to how He loves you, you will never be able to learn how to love yourself, and then others. Loving yourself isn't being a arrogant jerk. It's understanding who you are and who you were made to be, and not condemning yourself for things that happened, are happening, or will happen in the future. It's not any easy thing, but it can happen. So my advice is to listen to God and learn how to love and how to be a whole, full person in Him.

I hope you found this post interesting or helpful, but more than anything I hope it made sense.
~SoR

Announcement- March 13th

I've begun construction on a new blog type site where I will be posting my artwork and thoughts/explanations about what it means and some possible insight into it. I hope to have this site up soon, but it may take a while to get it up and running and get some things prepared for it so there will be something there by the time I post a link. However, I will be posting a link as soon as it is finished.

On another note, I have decided that I will post no more than one post a week in the hopes to keep the updating of the blog less sporadic. So check in on Fridays, as that will be the most likely date for posting them, but I will notify you of any change. I may add a news page to the blog, so check that to see if there are any updates on what is happening. It is also possible I will chain multiple blogs with the page gadget to make up one sort of site. I'll do some experiments with that to see how it works.

But thank you for following my blog, I have a post in the making right now and I will almost positively have it up on Friday. I hope you all enjoy it, and take the rest of the week easy and know that God loves you more than anything else, and you are His favorite person ever. 

~SoR 

Struggles and hardships

All of us, everyone in the world has their own set of hardships. No one can be compared to the other. No one should be saying "Oh, you think you've got it rough. Well look what I've got to go through." Everyone is different, and difficulties weigh differently on different people. Trying to compare them would be like trying to compare the weights animals can carry. Some can carry larger, some can carry smaller, but it would be the same physical strain on each in comparison. A mouse can pull a stick while an elephant can pull a tree, but the exertion on each, if scaled, would be the same.
    But moving onto the main point of this post, I'll start with this. Sometimes we feel like giving up because things feel too hard. We're tired of fighting and don't feel like we have the strength to keep going. But here's the thing. We will never be faced with something that's impossible to overcome. No matter how hard it is or how tired it makes us, it's not impossible. Sometimes you you'll lose ground, you'll fall back the the very edge, teetering on the edge of oblivion. But that's where it matters most to fight, to push forward. You never have to give in to it. Even if you lose a lot during any struggle or hardship, you'll gain ten times more when you've overcome it. They aren't something to be feared. Just know that you have to push through each one. Look at the light at the end of the tunnel, not the darkness around you. Because staring into the darkness gets you no where, but looking at the light gives you something to strive towards. Everyone has struggles and hardships, that's not something we can control. However we can control what we do when we're having them, and how hard we push to get through them. So a word of encouragement, don't give up or run away, because the reward is worth the work.