is life a fairytale?

When we're kids, we're told stories like Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, the Princess and the Frog, Repunzel, and Beauty and the Beast. What do all these stories have in common? Gorgeous men, and happy endings.

When we get older, we're told that these stories were bull crap to tell children because life is really a miserable empty pit of sorrow and despair with no meaning or reason.

When we find Jesus, we're told that life has it's struggles and we come across problems and difficulties just like the next person, but that we have a knight in shinning armor who fought a dragon and won.

So what do you think? Can life be a fairytale? Or a pointless abyss?

I know for me, I live in a fairytale. Just as I was standing at the point of death, a gorgeous savior swooped in and pulled me from disaster. Now, everyday I live in a gorgeous life of love and beauty provided to me by the greatest man in the world. He has many names, Savior, Lord, Jesus, Messiah,  Christ, Emmanuel, King of Kings, but to me, he is known only as my Prince.

I thank Him for his sacrifice and his love, because without him, there would be no me.

the music of my life

I think in music. I correlate emotions, events, and things to songs and sound. God is music to me. In fact, when I think about Jesus, I envision an early 20s, brown hair, hipster with a guitar. (I know, pretty silly) I also like to write songs. I write them at different times in my life when I'm hurt, happy, excited, nervous or scared. These songs are part of the road map of my life. When I hear a song from a month, year, 2 years 6 years, or 9 years ago, I'm transported back to that time and I'm completely lost and submerged in the music. It absorbs and consumes me, and in that moment, nothing else exists. Music is my life. I don't necessarily see myself using music as a type of career, but it will always be apart of who I am.
As long as the sun warms the earth, I will hear music in the cry of a baby and the waves of the ocean.

my family

I talk endlessly of the wonderful people from Sambica and how amazingly the have impacted my life. What I forget to talk about are the people who are even closer to my heart and who have been with me through every hard step and new challenge. We call ourselves cbcc4eva. We're scattered all over North America, but once a year, we all gather in Cannon Beach Oregon for a week at a conference center. We don't have many traditions, rather we create new memories and cherish old ones.

One thing that makes us such a closely-nit group are the individual relationships we hold with each other outside of our time together. Over the years we've had different people join and leave us. Some have stayed to grow our family, but it all started with 6. Connor Nelson, Billiam Heath, Austin Hammond, Cameron Wilson, Bethany Little and I. Fortunately more have joined us and our family has grown. Forrest Fleege joined us two years ago, and he's one of the most dedicated members of our family. Though people leave us, we still consider them apart of our family. There are the Canadiadians for example. Landon Doell, Vienna Doell, and David Oostra are the greatest people you will ever come across in your life. Debates were common during the summer that they joined us, but we will spend every subsequent year missing them.

When people speak of a family of friends, I think of these guys. There's no judgment and we're not embarrassed about our mistakes. In fact, we spend like half our time trying to find ways to break rules, be a nuisance, or pull pranks. But the nonsense is what grows our friendship as a family, and when we need each other, there's nothing that can stand in the way of us being there. I would call them my Cannon Beach family, but they're not. They're simply my family and nothing will ever change that.