Life

So, I read my New Year's Resolution post.  It is kind of embarrassing.  I have gotten so little of it done, and it is already June.  Yikes!  But I have been learning a lot this year.

Things I have learned:
Conquering comes from God, not you.
Parents are wise but not infallible.
Each day is available for me to use as I wish.  (Sometimes I wish to use it in ways that I later regret.)
Ask questions, but also look for answers.
Create and seize opportunities.
Most people are pretty great once you get to know them.
Things work out for the best in the end for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.  (God is a perfect author.)
Savor the moments.
Truth, if sought for, is not easily hidden.
Hard work pays off.
Life is not a smooth highway; there are lots of potholes.

There's some of what I learned this year.  I also learned a lot about math and chemistry, but the general populace does not find such subjects quite so interesting.  What have you learned this year?

A Masterpiece

Inspiration often alights on my shoulder like a soft, little bird.  Yet it flies away when I try to capture it with paint, a camera, ink, or any other medium.  Each time this wind of "brilliance" blows by and past me, my heart hurts.  Unfortunately, this is a pain that does not lessen with familiarity.  For great art thrills my very soul, and I long to give others that delight which I so keenly feel.

So often we, or at least I, waste time and energy on cheap entertainment.  Tonight I did not.  A true masterpiece grabs a hold of one's soul and changes it forever.  Hugo, the film, did not parade itself in gaudy colors, crying: "Look at me!  Look at me!"  Yet rather it dressed more as modest queen, standing in the shadows.  It's hidden beauty, the underlying mystery, gripped my heart far more than any outward fancy could.  The story is surreal, yet it struck a chord in all of the audience's hearts (at least when the audience is the Wagner family).  Magical.  An illusion, without all of the ends tied up, yet real enough to encourage me to open my mind and dream.  Hugo is a breath of fresh air, truly a great work of art.  As my brother so eloquently said, "It crept into my heart, my private life, uninvited and rocked me to my core." 

Thus, I wish I were an artist, a writer, a photographer.  For I long to inspire people to dream of becoming everything God made them to be and to know that those dreams are only an arms length away from reality.  All one has to do is reach.

Tears and Smiles

Life was not made to hurt.  Wrinkles were never meant to exist.  Heads slumped in despair, wondering, wondering, were never meant to be.  Parents should never bury their children.  Girls should never give their innocence as lovely as a rose them to men who will stomp on it and leave the petals crushed in the dirt.  Drugs were not supposed to eat people's souls, leaving them shrunken with vacant stares where jewels once dwelt.

God, all this pain and suffering and weariness and worry were never meant to exist.

Life should be smiles and laughter.  It should consist of hot bread slathered with sweet butter, of warm summer days filled with green grass and brilliant blue skies, of girls in white dresses skipping o'er the earth.

God, you know this.  And we, I, pulverized Your perfect world.  

Thank you that the story does not end there.  Thank you for kites and kisses, all echoing your LOVE for us, for me.

Challenges

Sweat was dripping down my back as I white-knuckled the rock climbing hold.  I reached for another bump on the wall, but my fingers slipped off when I tried to raise my body up further.  My muscles were numb from exhaustion, and my pinching climbing shoes could not grip the plastic bumps covered with white chalk.  Defeat whispered in my ears.

Tonight I went rock climbing at the local gym after not climbing in 3 months.  I haven't worked out my arms since then either, and the muscle required for climbing are not ones used daily.  To put it nicely, I FAILED!  I met a challenge which I could not conquer.  However, the worst part was lacking the will to conquer.  I simply gave up.

I have always been the competitive one, the one who climbed tall mountains, the one who accomplished impossible things.  Whenever I met a challenge, my blue eyes sparkled with a determination to prove stronger than it.  But I have not been challenged in a long time.  In my 14 college credits last semester, I easily achieved good grades.  My job has not stretched me.  When summer ended, my challenging outdoor activities terminated.  Quite frankly, I have succeeded so frequently that I have forgotten how to ascend a brick wall once I have run into it.  I have forgotten how to keep going when the going gets tough.  I can't remember how to embrace a challenge.  Instead, I flee from it.

However, that must change.  I may have failed at rock climbing tonight.  But I am going to lift weights and do push-ups.  I will go back to that wall and conquer it.  I may have forgotten how to continue when difficulty strikes, but I can learn how again.  I will seek out challenges, for I want to be strong in the face of adversity (by His strength alone).

2 Timothy 1:7 ~ For God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and discipline.

New Year's Resolutions

As the beginning of a January has rolled around once again, many people have made New Year's Resolutions.  Unlike many people, I do not make my resolutions on the first of the year.  Usually, a week or so later I learn of other's brilliant resolutions and decide my life needs some changing also.  However, my life dreadfully needs so much changing that I am soon swamped down by 30+ resolutions that I will never accomplish.

This year, 2012, I am determined to be different.  I am tired of saying I will accomplish a million of things and then never following through.  So I have formulated twelve resolutions as this fit with the current year.  These resolutions are not near as intense as I would like them to be.  However, it is better to make small progress towards a goal than to completely fail because I set the bar way too high.  So following are my resolutions in no particular order.  Drum roll, please!

Cassia's Resolutions for the Year 2012:
(To be accomplished by the strength of God my Savior)
1. Memorize one new Bible verse a week.  (This week's verse is Luke 11:23)
2.  Write down 1000 ways God loves me.  (Stolen from a friend!)
3.  Finish everything I start.  (It will probably take all year to make this goal reality in my life.)
4.  Exercise at least three times a week.
5.  Read my Bible and pray everyday, preferably in the morning.
6.  Praise God for one of His attributes each day.  (Today's is His lovingkindess.)
7.  Read at least one new book a month.
8.  Blog once a week.  (I need to write more, and this is fun even if nobody cares to read.)
9.  Not intterupt  other people when they are talking.  (Goal)
10. Keep an updated to-do list.  (I always forget what I am supposed to do!)
11. Clean my room each evening.
12. Read the news twice a week.
13. Keep detailed track of my finances.


Oops I made thirteen!  I guess I am a little too much of a perfectionist ;)  What are your New Year's Resolutions?