Living a Better Story

I could write about so many things right now... but then this post would probably be long and obnoxious, so I'll try to avoid that.

I needed my own time tonight and I actually felt like painting! (Which is amazing because I haven't felt like doing anything of the sort lately) I went to a home church (they are hoping to plant a church in Claremont soon) last night and had seen a cool painting on their living room wall with a great verse from Psalms on it. I've been thinking about this ever since and I decided I wanted to paint something with one of my favorite verses, Romans 15:13. I turned on Enric Sifa (great singer from Africa) and began to paint. I'm really happy with how it turned out.

So... a couple things about this painting that were different for me. One, it was my first time painting on canvas. And holy crap I never want to go back to artist paper stuff. I LOVE painting on canvas. I know what I'm saving my money for now... Two, if I want a certain color for my painting, I will pick it out of the numerous colors I have and then use it like that. But with this painting, I used only red, blue, and yellow, and a bit of white too. There are tons of colors in the painting but I created them all! I normally mix colors... but it was cool that I only had to use three main colors. It sounds silly because everyone learns about primary colors and mixing them and whatever... but it was just cool.

I've been reading Donald Miller's book A Million Miles in a Thousand Years. I love his books. He is real, brutally honest, and a beautiful writer. In his book, some movie producer guys come to him about making a movie out of a previous book he wrote. They get to work and the guys start changing all of these things about his character in order to make him more interesting, likeable, etc. This upsets Don, but he goes on to learns about stories, what makes people connect with them and what makes a good one. He begins to reflect on his own "life story" and realizes it's not very interesting and that he could be living a better story. I've been doing a lot of reflecting on my own life and my own story as well. What else could I be doing to live a better story? Not for the sake of telling people, or sounding awesome or anything, but simply because God gave me this life and I can do whatever I want with it. He gives me the freedom to create. How cool is that?

On our way home from Solvang today, an old idea popped into my head and it could and would force me to live a better story. I'm not going to share the idea... because it's still in the planning/processing stages and I'd rather not get everyone's hopes up. Haha but it's there and I know that I am capable of creating a better story by living out that dream. Pray for me, because it's going to take a lot of learning, money, and planning. We shall see...

Ok, the end, finally.

You are greatly loved.