Why I Love Photography

Every once in a while you come up with a great shot like this.

This is Tucker and Mariah, just starting out on their music career together. I met them at Jena's wedding. You can check out the rest of their best photos on my other blog: www.nicolechin.wordpress.com

The goodness of life

This week has been really hard and really good at the same time. It started out incredibly crappy and hard and I wasn't feeling very good because of some stuff that had happened over the weekend, but now looking back on this week I have definitely been able to see God's goodness prevail in my life and I have increased confidence in my talents and my God-given abilities and just a new faith and dependence on Him.

I have seen him in the several good girl friends I had a chance to finally hang out with. I have seen him in the two shoots I am getting ready for and the logo/print project I got asked last minute to do (even though none of them pay). His goodness is unpredictable, but reliable. His grace is sufficient and His love is more than enough.

It's not about the ideal life and the ideal friends and the ideal love and the idea picture of happiness. It's about being right where you're suppose to be, doing what you're suppose to be doing--surrounded in God's will, God's love and God's purpose. 

This may not be where I want to be with my life and I may need to continually surrender myself and submit to his will, but this is exactly where I'm suppose to be.

Mother Teresa

"Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go."

When will I get a chance to understand?

The Leap

"You can't design your life like a building. It doesn't work that way. You just have to live it and it will design itself. Listen to what the world is telling you to do and take the leap."

Sometimes, we have to take a leap of faith. Put ourselves out there. Trust each other. Trust God. And it's about time that I did.

Cynicism is bad

Totally convicted...

The dictionary defines cynical as “contemptuously distrustful of human nature and motives.” Singer Matthew Perryman Jones gets more creative in his definition: “Cynicism is nothing more than soul-rot. It’s nothing more than a coward dressed up in a tweed blazer smoking a Peterson pipe. It is dismissive and disengaged while looking invested and astute.”

This is from an article online at Relevantmagazine.com. Cynicism is created by combining the media and advertising with this unholy standard that we hold to the church. What does it really mean though? How do we change?

“Christians ought to know better,” explains Keyes. “We know about the fall, we know about sin, we know about brokenness and should be able to be honest. But when that doesn’t happen, Christianity can be another part of sentimentality, which is dangerous when the world breaks through the sentimental veneer. The truth that God loves you shouldn’t get lumped together with our plans always working out. A lot of people are cynical about the church. It’s a short step to then be cynical about God.”

The article concludes with this:

“Dr. [Francis] Schaeffer used to say ‘Each of us is a glorious ruin,’” said Keyes. “The cynic doesn’t see any glory at all. The sentimentalist sees all glory and no ruin. As Christians we got to be able to see both, to realize that reality is both.”

The world is beautiful. Christians are called to see the “glorious ruin” of humanity. God bought back the world from ruin at the greatest cost. As a result, Christians can see the world as something worth loving, worth fighting for, to see it as Jesus sees it; a world worth dying for.

When things are said like this, I wonder why exactly am I cynical and how do I get to place of true hope? I think it's time that I stopped anticipating the worse and start to really, truly hope for the best. And believe that it will come.

Believing in the goodness of God is more than just believing and knowing that God is good and he loves us and he wants what's best for us. It's living our lives in faith and hope in the promises and the joys of God. It's more than believing. It's more than knowing. It's seeing when you can and can't see and it's trusting when you can't and can't see and having faith and taking risks and leaping.

Leaping head first. Not feet first.

September 2009 to September 2010 Goal List

These are a few of the goals I have for the next year--hold me to them. Holleeeer!

1. Run a half marathon, complete a bike race or participate in a triathlon.
2. Jump off a waterfall.
3. Write a short story.
4. This one's a secret.
5. Kayak in San Francisco
6. Go to Dodgers spring training in Arizona
7. Learn how to snowboard
8. Volunteer at an inner city arts program
9. Go to the batting cages
10. Be a seat filler for an awards show
11. Be an extra in a TV show or movie.
12. Create something out of junk (which involves going to a junk yard)
13. Go to a shooting range.

BTW THE DODGERS MADE THE PLAYOFFS!!!

Blood Diamond

Since I'm stuck inside all day, I finally got around to watching Blood Diamond. It was overall very good, minus some unbelievable scenes in the end when the father surrenders everything to stupidly try to get his son back.

But there were a few things I took away from this movie. First of all, I'm shamefully aware of the life of privilege I live. I'm actually aware of this a lot, but I try to forget. I have a family and friends. I have a pretty decent life. And somewhere in the world is someone whose life is completely opposite of mine. I have luxury and I have privilege...makes it really hard to complain ever again to say the least. I was continually convicted over my lack of gratitude. We always want more. We're always seeking and asking for more...but why? Why do I want more when so much of the world has nothing?

I find myself continually drawn to really, actually seeing how I can help. Where do my talents and my skills fall into helping people who actually need help?

We live in this twisted celebrity-following, twilight-crazy, cell phone using, twitter following community where relationships and human one-on-one interaction are very very very taken for granted. And it broke my heart, somewhere, out there, right now as you read this is a hurting soul. A hurting child. A hurting parent. How can we look at ourselves and say our lives suck when there is so much poverty and so much pain out in other countries?

I'm incredibly moved after watching this movie. I feel like I have this constant battle in my heart. Between doing what I was suppose to do for my entire life: get a nice paying job, make nice paying money, get a nice paying house, start a nice pretty family. That's what I was suppose to do...continue a family line of hardworking professionals that worked their way through poverty and prejudice to get where they are today. How does one do that when all they want to do is make a difference in the world?

I want to travel. I want to see things. I want to be moved. I want my heart to break over what breaks God's heart. I want to cry when I see poverty, not look away with shame. I want to be able to give money to the poor, the shoes on my feet, the shirt off my back. How can one have a heart for the world but live in the world's richest state? Where do we draw the line? Where does reality start and ideals stop?

Can you be born into a life of privilege but still make a big difference? Can I sleep in my full bed and want to help someone who sleeps on the floor? Can I wear a different clean set of clothes every day and still help someone who doesn't have enough money for new clothes? Is it fair for me to even help them when I've been given everything and they've been given nothing?

There are too many dangers, too many hardships, too many hurts, too many conflicts to be passive and indifferent, to not care about what's going on in the world.