Remembering Adenhart

When the Angels celebrated winning the American League West Division, they didn't just dump champagne and beer on each other, but also on the jersey of late rookie pitcher Nick Adenhart.

This is what true friendship and camaraderie looks like. How often do we forget until after the person is gone?

A great journalist, even better person

Please read this eulogy for for editor Tim Wheatley, who died Monday morning when a UPS truck collided into his car while he was driving his 8-year-old daughter to school.

It's what we should all aspire to be: a great journalist--even better person.

"He excelled at his job, but his job was not his life." I'm taking notes!

An appreciation for former Baltimore Sun sports editor Tim Wheatley: So long, you did great?

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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.