oh! and another thing....

Since I started taking this design class for theatre, I've been drawing a lot lately. I'm currently working on this one picture of Twiggy that I really love, but until I finish that one & put it up, here's one I did recently for the actual class.

The picture is from a Chanel advert that I absolutely love & I'm actually kind of proud of the way it turned out. I'll hopefully be posting more soon.


♥
mjl

do you ever wonder...

why you let some people in your life? Like, obviously, we can't help a lot of the crazies that we encounter (and I encounter a lot), BUT there are some people who we keep around & allow to become commonplace fixtures in our lives like an ugly orange lamp in the corner that you inherited from your great-grandma, but haven't had the heart to throw out. Well, I've recently been forced to do some spring cleaning & readjusting of the Myspace Top Friends list that is my life, and I actually feel surprisingly good about it.
Not good in a conventional way, but good like when you have a toothache that's been killing you for a long time & have to get it pulled, which hurts for a little bit, but then you feel a lot better & will be healthier in the long run...that kind of good.
So, yeah. My "toothache" is gone, and though it was a prolonged and painful effort to get rid of it, I feel so much better.

♥
mjl

well,

damn.



mjl.

berlin, ich liebe! ♥

The White Ribbon won Best Foreign Film at the Golden Globes last night! Go Germany!!! ^.^

AAAAAAND, Christoph Waltz took home a Globe for his phenomenal performance in Inglorious Basterds (which, seriously, should've won...if not for Best Picture, than at least for writing or directing...I don't even like Quentin Tarantino that much, but he totally deserved it)

But, RDJ won for Sherlock Holmes, as he well should have. And Sandra Bullock, whose dress was BEAUTIFUL btw, won for Blindside...also well deserved.
Take that Julia...maybe next time you should focus more on accepting good movie roles rather than stumbling drunk down the red carpet.


*siiiiiigh* I love awards season.

mjl

for the moments i feel faint

So, I've never really understood the deep philosophical thought supposedly produced by the question "What is your purpose in life?" because, to me, my purpose has always been quite simple: spread the love of my Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ.

Now, obviously, I fail at this purpose every single day, which, as I'm sure you can imagine, is a little disheartening, to say the least. For instance, I'll be doing something that not only keeps me from achieving my purpose in life, but flat out goes against everything for which my purpose stands. And the worst part is I'll acknowledge this fact and then continue to do it anyway! It's so frustrating! It's like being morbidly obese, knowing that you need to lose weight, but then purposefully sabotaging yourself & your efforts to improve your life by indulging in crap that you know is bad for you. So, long story, short (too late, I know): my inadequacies of my own faith are often a major contributor to my feelings of consternation with myself and my life.

Bypassing my little tangent, and returning to my original point: my purpose in life is to spread the love of God. I know this. So one of my daily prayers is for God to use me in whatever way He can to achieve His purpose, which, coincidentally, is very similar to mine (: (aka sharing His unending love with His creation).

Now, sometimes it feels like God is denying me this reiterated request, which wouldn't really make sense, except for the fact that when I look back at my life, I clearly see that He has granted me soooooooo many opportunities to share His love & word, but I totally blow it. This happens either by me being too scared to speak up about it or me being too stupid to recognize it.
Then I also realize that perhaps I'm not being granted as many opportunities because I'm coming at this from a selfish angle. For instance, there are honestly few things in this world that make me more ecstatic than someone coming to Christ, and if I had any part in their journey, as the New Yorker's say, fuhgeddaboudit!
I go crazy! It's truly a feeling that I can't put into words because the happiness it evokes within me can't really be covered by all caps, exclamation points, or a whole bunch of "e"s in "reeeeeeeeeally happy". But although I should totally feel that happiness when I find another brother or sister in Christ, it's not my victory, and I think I sometimes forget that I really have no part in what goes on with someone's spirit: it's all God. If He chooses to work through me somehow, then it's not me, but Him.
Like one of my favorite verses says, "But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them--yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me." (1 corinthians 15:10)

So all of that basically adds up to me not being able to share God's love as effectively as I could be, due to my own shortcomings, and, as I've said before, this has been really disheartening. However, I just got a wonderful reminder tonight, via a note from a friend, that God can literally work through anything & anyone (even without his/her knowledge). He uses me even when I haven't the slightest inkling that I'm being used! And, honestly, I'm kind of feeling that joy right about now :D

So, whenever I'm feeling stressed because of school/family/relationship/work/friend drama, someone PLEASE remind me that God is always at work in my life, even if I can't see it or feel the immediate results.

Amen & Amen :D
mjl

youth is wasted on the young people

Here are some pictures of Jess & I after our Stage Makeup class today on Old People makeup (:

It's quite fitting seeing as, only yesterday, we were discussing how we already share the same demeanors as old, cynical, British men, like Sir Ian McKellen, since our tolerance for stupidity is getting dangerously lower all the time.

So, in case you were wondering what Jess & I may look like when we get older (who WOULDN'T want to know that?? :P), here ya go (:

♥
mjl

goodbye, my almost lover

Ugh! I hate that at one moment, I feel like this...
"Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross."
(Sonnet XXXIV, William Shakespeare)

and the next I feel like this...
"No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud:
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this"
(Sonnet XXXV, William Shakespeare)

I repeat...UGH! Well...at least Shakespeare felt the same way.
Pray for me to find permanent peace of mind in this whole thing...please & thank you!

♥
mjl.


"We walked along a crowded street
You took my hand and danced with me...images
And when you left, you kissed my lips
You told me you would never, never forget
These images...no

Well, I'd never want to see you unhappy
I thought you'd want the same for me

Goodbye, my almost lover
Goodbye, my hopeless dream
I'm trying not to think about you
Can't you just let me be?
So long, my luckless romance
My back is turned on you
Should've known you'd bring me heartache
Almost lovers always do"

- "Almost Lover", A Fine Frenzy ♥

c'mon get happy

"God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." - C.S. Lewis

amen.
mjl

"Have I been so long with you, & yet hast thou not known Me?"

Guten Tag, my lovelys!

So, as I was reading my morning devotional by the illustrious & extremely well-versed, Oswald Chambers (I ♥ that name...totally sounds made up, haha), I came across an explanation of his on what a truly intimate relationship with Christ is like, which seemed particularly appropriate since I was having such trouble explaining it in previous blog entries. Anywho, here's what Os had to say...

"When one gets intimate with Jesus we are never lonely, we never need sympathy, we can pour out all the time without being pathetic. The saint who is intimate with Jesus will never leave impressions of himself, but only the impression that Jesus is having unhindered way, because the last abyss of his nature has been satisfied by Jesus.
The only impression left by such a life is that of the strong calm sanity that Our Lord gives to those who are intimate with Him."

my new year's resolution, among some others, is to grab hold of & sustain a more intimate relationship with our loving Creator. (:

amen & amen.

mjl.


postscript...the title verse of the day is brought to you by the letter, J! As in John 14:9! Woo hoo! (;

♥

"My eager desire & hope being that I may never feel ashamed, but that now as ever, I may do honour to Christ in my own person by fearless courage."

philippians 1:20


♥
mjl

should old acquaintances be forgot?

happy happy new year
from all of us to you!
we wish it was our new year
so we could party too!
HEY!

Hello 2010!

I hope I don't seem forward, but you look like you're going to be a fantastical year full of even more random and wonderful adventures than the last.

So here's to you!

La'Chaim! Salud! And God bless!


♥
mjl.