Thought Process: Ecclesiastes

   Have any of you ever read Ecclesiastes all the way through? Have you ever just sat down and read it, studied every word and verse and really thought about it?
   That's what I did today. Well, technically yesterday, since I'm writing this the day before.
   I've loved Ecclesiastes for a long time. I've been re-reading it recently, a chapter every once in awhile when I felt like I needed it. But yesterday I really needed it, and I started from the beginning and read all the way through in one day. Which was definitely one of the better choices I've made in my life.
   One thing I've recently learned and am awed by is that, apparently, some "scholars" think that the book comes across as cynical, as if the writer had lost his faith in God. Which I personally think is one of the biggest hunks of garbage I've ever heard of.
   Lemme tell you why.
   I used to love Ecclesiastes, even before I was saved. Because even then, when I was so young, I wondered why we were here and if it was all just some big, stupid game. And Ecclesiastes showed me that there was more than that.
   And now that I'm reading it again, knowing more about myself and who I am and still having those same old thoughts among many others... I almost couldn't believe what I was reading.
   These aren't the words of a cynic. They're the words of a man who is pouring out his darkest fears on paper, his harshest realizations. He also wonders why we're here, he wonders why we spend all of our time on these things that won't even mean anything later on. He wonders the same things I wonder, the things other people wonder as well.
   And he gives a solution that every single person in this world who is struggling with depression, the meaning of life, their own thoughts and insecurities, just every person in general needs. We're here to live our life to the fullest, to seek out a higher wisdom, and to love and fear God with all of our hearts. This is what our purpose is. This is how we will impact people. This is how we will be remembered.
   This is one of the two main reasons I love Ecclesiastes. The other one is this.
   I often feel like no one understands me. That if I were to actually open up my heart and mind, that people would just look at with confusion, call me crazy, tell me to stop. I feel like I'm the only one who thinks this way. That's why whenever I find someone or the product of someone else that thinks like this, I cling onto it tightly and with such passion. It's because I've found someone who actually understands me, who I can actually relate with on a non-empathetic level. That's something very, very special to me.
   And that's why I love Ecclesiastes. Not only is it something I can relate to in that same way, but it's something that God himself put into the Bible. Of course I know that God knows me better than anyone else ever could. But the fact that he put something that I could relate to on such a personal level, in a world where I often feel like a freak for thinking the way I do, touches me in a way I can't really explain. He's showing me and people like me, the thinkers, the feelers, that it's okay to think this way. He's showing us an answer to our questions. He's telling us to live well and to fear Him.
   Because that's what life's all about. It's all about living and fearing God, and helping as any people toward this path as we can.
   And the fact that God himself knows how I think, that He knows how confusing and hard it is, that He knows that I feel like I am completely alone sometimes. The fact that He knows all of this and He put this book specifically in the Bible for a reason so that people like me would come along and read it and know that they're not alone...
   That makes it so much easier for me to accept and love myself, to step forward with hope for a brighter day in my heart, and to know that with God, I am never, ever alone.
   So reader. Thinker. Feeler. Dreamer. I challenge you this week to sit down and read straight through Ecclesiastes. I don't care if you're a Christian or not. I challenge you to go and do it. And I promise you that it will make you feel a lot less alone if you do.

MR

The Piano Guys... LIVE!!!

Hey, hey, hey, look who's late!!!!
It's me!!!! I'm late again!!! What a shock!! I mean really!!!

Yeah, back again with no excuse aside from I just wasn't really feelin' the blog post I had written. But I shall continue on with it and hopefully have it up by this Friday.
   Ah gee, I hope you all are doing well. Hope your week was great and that this one is going alright too. And if not, my advice to you is to just keep going and try to focus on the good. Try making something, try drawing something, try writing something. Keep going, my friend. :)
   So yes, as the title might have revealed, I did something very special this week with my dad. We went and saw The Piano guys live!!!! And let me just say. It was... Awesome.
   Steven and Jon were amazing. Man, they just put their heart into it and it went spectacular!! I took a lot of pictures, so prepare yourself for this photo dump.

Here's the arena before the concert. Dad and I got there about 1 hr 45 min early, so we had plenty of time to get in, find our seat, get some merch.

The stage before the concert

And so it begins! 

I think it was right about here when something quite startling happened. We were seated about 5 seats from the stairs. There are three people seated right next to the stairs, which also means that I didn't have to sit next to a stranger, thank the Lord. :) But so, about three songs into the concert. We're sitting there listening to the music and already having a good time. You should be able to see in the next few pictures that there isn't much of a guardrail between the seats and what must be about a 10-12 foot drop off to the next row of seats. And this lady. This poor lady slips on the stairs and falls backwards into the people sitting by the stairs. Thank goodness they caught her so she didn't go flying off into oblivion. :P She was alright, a little shaken up. But yeah, that was quite the fright of the night! 

The played Five Secrets, which was awesome and beautiful, and probably one of my favorites of the night. And one of the coolest parts of it was that they had one of the local youth orchestras come out and play some of the symphony part!!

"Through a Father's Eyes"

And here's the arena during intermission. According to Steven and Jon, there were about 4,500 people.

Another shot that shows more of the back of the room, and also the head of the man who was sitting in front of us. 

Steven's solo

Jon's solo

Ah, here was another interesting part! Jon actually broke one of the piano strings! A member of the crew had to come out and cut it off. 

They played the Amazing Grace and Fight Song mashup for their last song, which was another one of my favorites. And there were live bagpipes, which was so cool!!!

And for an encore, all of the guys came out and played "What Makes You Beautiful". I really wanted to record the standing ovation, because it was awesome. But I was too busy clapping to record. :P

And finally, here's my merch. I got a sweet sticker that I'm planning on putting in my new sketchbook when I get it. And also a t-shirt that was actually for 2015's tour, but I was too cheap to spend $5 more. :P

And so ends my awesome night. There were actually a lot more songs, but I tried to take a picture of every one of them, but I didn't want to take up too much of your time, heehee. Thanks for reading, and I'll see you soon.

MR

DAILY QUOTE CHALLENGE: Day 3

Boop!
   I'm back for the final day of this challenge! :D
   Seriously, I'm having really hard time finding just one quote, and I am seriously thinking about making this a month long thing at some point. We shall have to see.
   So without, further ado, here's the last one.



I think this sums up my feelings about the night very nicely. :)
   I'm really thinking about going through all of my quotey boards on Pinterest, and typing/printing all of my favorites out and putting them in some kind of a notebook or something....

Thus ends the challenge. Have a wonderful day, everyone. Hoping to be back on Tuesday with another post, but maybe not. I'll be back for sure on Friday, though.

Until next time, dear readers.
MR

DAILY QUOTE CHALLENGE: DAY 2

   I can't even tell you how hard it is for me to wade through all of the quotes that I love to pick ones for this challenge. I could do, like, a month long challenge, maybe even a year long challenge. Hmm, you know, that's not a bad idea. Maybe I'll hold onto that one...

Here's the quote:



   This one kind of, in a way, ties in with my last Though Process. We don't want to cast aside hurt people and we don't want them to think it's bad that they're hurting.Same with ourselves. There's nothing wrong with being a little beat up, a little bruised. I'm going to add to this quote and say that we can't forget that we are the ones with the light, with the healing, and we either need to show that to other people or remember it for ourselves.
   Why don't we start helping people out instead of throwing them in the garbage?  

See you tomorrow!
MR

DAILY QUOTE CHALLENGE!!!! (Day 1)

Hey lovlies!!! :D
   So, yesh, I'm alive and well. The last two weeks have been kind of crazy, what with a bunch of things that weren't all that good. But things are going a bit better now, thank the Lord. :)
   Along those lines, lemme update you on my prayer request from a few weeks back, the little girl with cancer. Her surgery went great! They were able to get all of the tumors out of her face without damaging it. However, she's run into some pretty big bumps in the road. The cancer's pretty bad this time around, and her family was having a difficult time finding someone willing to treat her. But they have, and now they are in the process of getting paperwork to this clinic and getting over there as quick as they can. They really need your prayers as this is a very scary time. So please, continue to pray for this sweet girl and her family!
   And now to get to the post. :)
   The wonderful Bronze from over on her blog has tagged me in a three day quote challenge.
 
   Here be da rules:
   1. Thank the person who nominated you
   2. Nominate 3 new bloggers everyday
   3. Post a new quote everyday for three consecutive days

   Aaaannnnddd, as has become the norm with me and these tagging posts, Imma have to tag only three people total, because I STILL DON'T FOLLOW ENOUGH BLOGS!! Ya'll don't be afraid to send me some recommendations, 'cause I need them!!
   THANK YOU Bronze for tagging me in this!! I have an obsession with quotes, so it's going to be hard to narrow this post down to just three. :P

So yes. Here is my first quote to kick things off.



This has got to be one of my favorite writing quotes of all time. Seriously, I have it printed out and hanging on my wall. I love it. This was the quote that gave me a kick in the butt and made me start and finish my first draft.

And now for the tags...

Nina: http://ponderousthoughtsairiefeelings.blogspot.com/
Emmarayn: http://writinginrivendell.blogspot.com/
Darrion: http://sincerelydarrion.blogspot.com/

Hope you  liked the quote and see you guys tomorrow!!
MR

Thought Process: Emotions

Let's get this out of the way.
   I am an extremely emotional person. I mean, I feel everything. Even stupid things. If I step on a flower, a pang of guilt shoots through me that I ended something so innocent. I still feel guilty if I can't keep all of my stuffed animals on my bed. Now I'm sitting here thinking about the two tubs of stuffed animals sitting in the garage alone in the cold and I'm feeling guilty.
   I am attached to everything. If something tragic happens to someone, I can imagine what it feels like. If someone's upset or having a down day, I can tell. Sometimes I can tell if someone walking by me in the store is having a bad day. You might think I'm crazy or exaggerating, but it's true. It's weird, I know, but I ain't lyin' to you.
   I feel everything. 
   But I don't often show it.
  And you know, sometimes all of those emotions, along with the ones you have of your own, can really bottle up inside of you.
   Now let's talk about other people.
   Other people have gone through some real junk in their lives. Some real hard-core junk that no one should ever have to go through, but that's how life is, and we just have to keep climbing upward, but that's a different post for a different day.
   Other people just have a hard time getting through this life. When you feel like you're drowning in yourself and your scared of everything, but most of all what's inside of you, that really drags you down to the point where you don't want to get up anymore.
   And that kind of stuff can really bottle up inside of you. It can get to where you feel rotten to your core and you don't know where to go or where to turn to, and you're scared and angry and you don't know what to do.
   In our society today, people are all about gettin' mad. Everyone's always offended about something, everyone's always mad about some "hate crime" or some "injustice". And the media loves it. People love it. The world loves false emotions and something they can rally behind and cheer for and put on a mask of false passion, when really they have no passion for it. As soon as the next "injustice" comes along they're running after that with guns blazing.
   Meanwhile, the people who are hurting, the people who actually have a reason to get mad are thrown to the side.
   And you know what else? Our society is all for being yourself and finding who you truly are.We're all for the homosexuals and showing them support and helping out the "transgenders" and all of that crap. But they really don't care about the people who actually need help. The ones who are deeply hurt and confused and don't have anyone to turn to. We just send them to a therapist and tell them to take these pills and they'll be fine. When that doesn't' actually help the real problem at all.
   And one day, the neglected people who have been rotting inside for so long, the ones who actually need the help that we are so willing to give to everyone else... They finally snap. They lose it. They freak out and scream and holler and let out some of the emotions that have been festering inside of them for so long. If we're lucky, that is. Some of these people have had too much. They reach the conclusion that no one actually cares about them, that they're just crazy, that they're just worthless, and they kill themselves.
    Oh, and guess what the world thinks of that.
   They are horrified. It's so sad that girl would do that, so embarrassing that guy did that. They shed a few tears, utter a few exclamations and shrug it off, giving their children a firm reminder to never, ever do such unspeakable things.
   When the only reason they did was because no one cared about them enough to take the time to help them!!!!!!
   This is horrible, is it not? But you know what's even worse?!
   CHRISTIANS DO THE EXACT SAME THING
   Dang it all, we are supposed to be the ones that are helping these people, we're supposed to be the ones with the answers, and you know what we do instead?? We step back, horror filling our eyes, holding a hand over our righteous hearts.
    We feel violated when someone screams a little bit, when someone shouts a little bit. We're disgusted at the things teenagers and the rest of the suffering people of the world are doing and saying and dressing and listening to. Oh, don't our hearts break when we hear about that poor boy who took his own life? Maybe if his parents had spanked him more as a kid or guarded him better that wouldn't have happened. So we build a higher wall around ourselves to keep all of the gross things out and pump our kids with some more good Christian things to make ourselves feel better.
   When someone we know says that they're depressed or have anxiety, our lungs freeze with shock and we wonder if that person is really saved. Because surely you can't be a Christian and have those kind of problems. Only people without the Lord have those kind of struggles.
   So we grab our kids by the hand and hightail it out of there as fast as we can before it starts spreading to us.
   Because that's exactly what Jesus did when they threw the woman caught in adultery at his feet, when he found the demon possessed man in Galilee, when the thief next to him on the cross asked Jesus to remember him in heaven, when his closest friends in the world ran away and Peter denied him three times, when the man who had killed countless Christians was laying prostrate on the road to Damascus.
   What in the heck am I trying to say in all of this??
   I'm trying to say that people are so afraid of emotions. Just take a look at this: Don't yell at your mother, Tommy, don't talk to the guy with tattoos and piercings, Jimmy, why don't you ever leave your room, Sally? 
   People, especially parents, say these things all of the time. We don't want to be around those kind of people,  And then when Tommy hits his mom and runs away, and Jimmy ends up doing drugs and living on the street, and Sally kills herself, we wonder why.
   We shake our heads at the sobbing shoulders of their mothers and the shaking hands of their fathers and we say they should have sheltered their kids more. Because surely it wasn't because the kids were confused and hurting and lost. They went to a good conservative church all of their lives and listened to good preaching every Sunday and Wednesday. They didn't need anyone to take them under their wing and tell them it was alright they were feeling this way and that they were willing to help them figure out why and show them they way out of it. Because they were around good, godly things all of the time, weren't they??
   Am I saying that it's okay for you to listen to death metal and get tattoos and piercings and yell at your mom because you're trying to figure yourself out?
   No, absolutely not!!!
   What I am saying is that the world and we as Christians are, like I said earlier, afraid of emotions. We're afraid of pain and hurting, and boy, are we really scared of things like depression and anxiety and self harm and all of the things that kids and adults are wrestling with today. What we aren't realizing, is sometimes the first step to fixing the problem is screaming and shouting and crying a little bit, whether it's at someone, by yourself, or maybe even with someone in person or in a song, and getting rid of some of the rottenness inside of you so you can start finally getting to the root of the problem. But all we want to do is skip over that first step and get straight to the next one. Because we're afraid of the dark parts inside of us, and instead of finding them and fighting them, we ignore them and hope it's "just a phase."
   So let me end with this. Scream a little. Shout a little. Let your kid do it if they need to. And when they've gotten it out, then get to the root of the problem.
   Because if we'd all stop being so afraid of emotions, the things God gave us as humans, one of the things that make us different than animals and a little more like God himself, those really important things that oddly enough no one likes...
   Maybe the world wouldn't be quite so messed up.

MR

((Sorry this post is such a train wreck. I didn't think it would be right if it was any cleaner.))