WHEN SHOULD DREAMS DIE?

I watched a movie today.  In the opening the lady looses her job and get a less than inspiring speach from her mother about her "dreams".   

"When you are 8 and you've got dreams, that's adorable, when you're 18 that's inspiring, but when you're 28, that's just embarrassing...... *pity face* let's just not get to heartbreaking"

My question though is this:  When should a dream die?  I think never.  I think they should change and shift with us in some respects, because as we grown our dreams should as well.  We learn more of our own heart and can better weigh our dreams in light of that but the idea that age should determine your potential  in this world is ridiculous, and the idea that anyone should tell you to quit thinking outside of their self imposed box is even more absurd. 

In this I"m not saying we should negate responsibility to society or family; however, I am saying that  you should not be afraid to  stand out, you should not be afraid to go againSt the grain, and you should  most definitely not be afraid of dreaming a  crazy seeming  dream(regardless of age).  That crazy big dream that seems unfathomable to others might just well end up being the dream that God has for you, but  until you step out in faith you'll never even be able to guess wat what could be or "might have been".   Don't let life pass you by in fear.

On the age note, if God can make a king of Josiah at age 8, use a teenage girl to birth the savior, send Jesus into his minstry at 30, and use  a 90+ something year old to father the nations  then I would have to say   no matter how long or short your time is on this earth never sell yourself short based on  something as simple as "age".   

REACH FOR THE STARS

If you want to be a lawyer go for it (a shot out to my aunt naomi), if you want to be a dance therapist do it, if you wnat to be a stay at home mom   go for it,  If you want to be an author WRITE( a shot out to my cuz), if you want to   tour the world make it happen,  if you want to be missionary in the middle of the amazon PROPS.   

All things are possible to them that believe and to them that are  willing to do whatever it takes/pay the cost.    

ALASKA!

Some snapshots from the most awesome summer of my life! worked at a lodge off the prince of whales island. FANTASTIC! :)

this is a slide show of some OLD and some more recent shots, all before I realy started to think about trying to do photography in MCD. Before then it was just something I did for myself and never thought about. The ones marked 2007 are ones that I tried to sell as a fund raiser for MCD :) and it did help some for the down payment lol. The rest are just life as I know it.

news update/new ommer of manna # I forgot :)

So, the semester ended, I survived!   I didnt' walk due to certain stressors I was uncertain about,   my mom could care less, my dad  has come to expect failure so I'm a joke when it comes to this ( all pressures off, lol)  but ah who cares! I OFFICIALLY HAVE ALL MY CREDITS FOR UNDERGRAD!  :)  and,  I will walk in December FINALLY- seriously, no stress next semester outside of a class I picked up for a minor which is soooo exciting! Also, despite delays and setbacks   I was given permission to take a grad class which I aced :D I even got a little certificate of competency for on scene  mental triage  :)  Crisis Intervention yeah!

Anyways, all that jabber aside  here is the down low of where I'm at and what happened  in my last moments at school this semester.  I'm currently at my dad's house for the summer helping him  take care of my little sister and  his special needs foster kids.     It's kind of nice not to think about homework.

At the end of my stay though I realized that the $1,300 worth of personal items that seemed to walk away from me  this year weren't lost  but rather stolen by the girl across the hall.   GAH!   They weren't legally able to get her for any of my stuff but I KNOW, due to  having caught her with some of the stuff this more than assumptions.  I was actually more sad for her though than anything in the end.   I don't understand how she could cheat all these people  that she was so close to, I don't understand why she would  like she had no other  options, and I realy dont' understand how she could walk out of there looking me in the face and still never be able to tell the truth about any of it all.  She got caught selling books back that other people purchased(such as her roommate and my roommate)  so they finally ended up suspending her for a year.  In the final moments I'm pretty certain  the reason my camera is gone is because she took it at the same time she took my roommates books but that is a lot harder to prove unless i find it on her or it shows up at a pawn shop with her  name signed to it, so alas it is simply put no more in my life.

Yup, that's right  the Nikon D300 with crop lines etched inside, the Nikkor 85mm  F1.4D AF, Nikkor 17-55mm 1:2.8   that I saved up forever to get walked away overnight.  *sigh*  The funny thing is though, aside from feeling a little strained out of my want to do photography, I realy didnt' break down over this.  Yah, I want to do this badly, but I don't need to I guess.  I love it but it's not imperative to life.

Maybe because it was so big I knew I couldn't do anything so I just let it go and let God.     My education is first right now.  Doing weddings was just an idea of how I might be able to start actually paying for it, or starting to pay back my massive students loans for bible college,  but  the reality of all of this is that no matter the "how"  things happen,  life is so much bigger than me   and ultimately the only one bigger than life itself is God.  So, if i'm following Him I believe  I can't get too far off track or too far under ground that God can't  be glorified  and my dreams, His heart, still come to pass in my life.    

Cool story though:  In the middle of all of this out  of no where, about week one into my camera withdraws I got a message from a distant uncle of mine who just happend to have a D5100 laying around that he would mail it my way if I wanted.   It might not have the sen Nikon sor my last camera did but  it is such a huge, awesome, amazing, wonderful,  exciting blessing lol  :)  that  of course I jumped all over that!    *so it's on it's way in the mail*  And, I realy believe it goes to show how faithful God  is.  I'm not a perfect person.  I mess up more often than not most of the time, but somehow in the middle of that I realy feel God  meets me and still pushes and pulls me forward  in His love.   I am amazed, and that is all I can say.    Why would God care about something such as  a picture as much as me?  :)

So, instead of being bitter, I've decided i the midst of turmoil and blessing that I will be faithful with the little and  use the camera I get this summer to practice practice practice and only better myself in what I hope to use someday as something more than a hobby.   Maybe I'll even post some stuff on here later.  Old and new.