{Alexis}

[ A thirty-second photo shoot I did with Alexis last Summer:) ]

{Zoo Shots - set of 3}

Three of my best pictures from when we went to the zoo a couple months ago. Maybe some time soon I'll get around to blogging all of them. ;)

 I've been experimenting with creating my own presets in Lightroom so that I won't have to spend $120 on the VSCO film package I want. I'm having fun with it. :D
 I guess you could say these pictures are samples of my own film look. :D I know! Someday I can sell my own preset package and make more money than the Visual Supply Company does. I mean nothing's impossible. ;)


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"...the joy of the Lord is your strength."  -Nehemiah 8:10, b.

He Is Enough

 Last night, before I went to sleep, I started praying. And as I prayed out loud in the darkness, talking to Jesus, I just started crying because Jesus is so beautiful, and this life so undeserved, and His love so unimaginable. I cried because of my Lord's beauty, and I cried because of my sinfulness and forgetfulness, the undeservedness of my spirit, and the wide far reaching love of God towards me that made me His child. I saw His beauty, and it hurt. 

 I had to get up and write my thoughts down. This is the thought process that went into my prayer to Jesus.

“Because when you are stripped of everything, you realize that all you have is Christ, and that He is enough.” -(a young lady who is missionary to a dangerous Muslim country) 

 When everything I have is stripped away, even when everything I know and hold dear is taken from me, I’m still rich and blessed beyond my highest dreams. If my family was torn away, if I lost even my best friends, if everything I ever dreamed about was ripped from me, if I wandered the streets with no home and no protection, I would still be blessed beyond comprehension. Because I have Christ, and He is enough. He is enough for me.

 He is enough for me? Christ Jesus, God’s son, is enough for me. His unsurpassable love for me is enough. His arms holding me is enough. His unimaginable beauty is enough. His holiness and His purity and His complete and absolute deity are enough. His wide grace is enough, and it reaches me, no matter in what depth of low despicable nasty filth I wallow. His beauty and grace and love are more than enough for me.

 What is earth? A shadow, a breath, a vapor. It is nothing; it is a wind that is fleeing away. Everything on earth is a passing, unimportant, soon to be not even vaguely remembered thing. What do I really have? I have God. I have all of Him; I am His and He is mine.

 If I cannot feel Him fully right now, it is because I am a flawed mortal body, not assimilated to the wonders of heaven, still earthly, not heavenly. But when this shadow passes, and I am in heaven, I will feel Him. I will feel HIM. I will see His beauty, His unimaginable deity. I will see Him, and touch Him, and dwell with Him. I will deeply feel His presence. What other wealth is there besides this? God, beautiful, supremely holy, unsurpassably lovely and pure, is mine. The One who held out His hands to me, His nail scarred and beautiful hands, and who loved me, and chose me, and accepted me, sought me out and drew me and unconditionally cared for me, the One who wrote my name in the book of life, who formed me and bought me with love.

 Me. He bought me. What am I? I am nothing, absolutely nothing. Less than nothing, I am pride, ungratefulness, vanity, lies, abject sinfulness and disobedience. And this thing, this nasty unholy impure thing was seen, and chosen, and drawn, and unconditionally loved and purified by the most Holy of Holies, God Himself. I can’t even imagine it.

 This is what God is. He is a God who pours love into something so worthless as me, so that when He has purified me I will reflect His glory. This is happiness. This is ultimate fulfillment. This is love, and peace, and joy forevermore. For no reason other than love, God gave me everything in exchange for nothing. I have the right and duty to be the most joyful, happy, boundlessly passionately excited and changed human that ever walked this earth. With no family, no friends, no earthly possessions, with every supposed need completely stripped away, I am still the most blessed of beings. Because I have Christ, and He is enough. He is more than enough for me.

//Day in Julian, Feb. 1st

My sisters and I drove up to Julian with Kyle and Andrew on Saturday.
We walked around lake Cuyamaca, and had fun in the little bit of snow that came down
                    unexpectedly. I wore Sami's too-big-for-me hoodie, and she wore Andrew's.
                     Kyle and Ella were a bit crazier, wearing no jackets at all. :D It was a very good day.
(Almost all pictures of me were taken by Sami. She made me post them. :P)

I had to get creative with my position to get this shot. It may or may not have included mud.

Notice Andrew and Sami in the background. Pretty sure they thought they were flying.

Ella and Kyle, living life on the edge. 

She kept telling me to stare.  "Hi, I'm Madalynn. I'm a creepy
snow maiden. Oh, and I'm about to kill you."

Classic Andrew and Sami. :D :D

This is also about as classic as it gets. ;)

Kyle told me I should take pictures of these Canadian Geese. At first I thought I
                    was going to scare them away. They held their ground. Then I thought that they might
attack me. They did neither; instead, they ignored my existence altogether. I was halfway offended. :P

You know what hurts? I'll tell you what hurts: taking pictures in the snow. This hit me for the first time on Saturday, the only time I've ever shot when it was that cold. Flipping the on and off switch is like getting your finger smashed with an 80 pound rock. And then you have to pry your hand off your camera, and make sure it's still attached to your wrist. Ouch.

So to let you in on how crazy I am, I'll tell you what I did to get this post up. First, I did basic edits in Lightroom. Then I uploaded my favorites (212 of them, out of 1078) to Skydrive. Then I went through all my favorites in Skydrive on my iPod touch, and individually downloaded my favorite favorites. After I got them all in a folder on my touch, I opened them individually in Faded (an editing app) and saved them after I edited them. Then I uploaded them from my touch to a different skydrive folder, and downloaded that folder onto my computer. I opened those files in Picasa, and uploaded them to G+, and from there I put them on Blogger.

Maybe this is the reason I rarely post on my blog. I make it so hard for myself. :P





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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can beagainst us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? (Romans 8:31-32, ESV)