The Art of Nightmares.

This seems a little strange, I know. But it's something I really have been thinking about and I would like some response.
So if you take the time to read this whole post, please take 1 more minute to tell me your thoughts about this. Mostly just because it's interesting.
So I've been watching "Lost" lately. If you've ever seen it, then you know that, at times, it can get pretty creepy. So the other night I was up until 2 a.m. making and decorating a cake, and watching Lost.
**Spoiler!!!** If you're ever going to watch Lost, skip this paragraph.
So if you have ever seen Lost, then specifically, I was on the part where Micheal, Jin, Sawyer and  Walt take the raft out, and then they find the wine bottle with messages and assume they've crashed and Walt keeps appearing to Shannon all wet and just telling her to stay quiet, even though he's supposed to be in the raft, not on the island.
So, at 2 a.m., for a girl like me who's scared of the dark, that's a bit much to take at that time of night. I start to get afraid that I'll have nightmares, or when I look at the windows, I'll see the creepy things and people that make up Lost staring at me through the window, sucking me into the story.
But when I look at the window, my imagination doesn't imagine a dripping supposedly dead boy looking at me through the window. All I see is the real lightning and thunder of an oncoming storm, and a few bugs that want in where the light is.
Obviously, it's kind of a relief, right? I mean, I won't have nightmares. I'm not scared of it anymore. I'm getting braver! ...right?
I'm not sure. It got me thinking.
Of course, I don't want to be scared of TV shows anymore. No one does. So when we grow up, we're not scared of them like we were when we were kids, because we learn to be brave.
Or we learn that they're not real.
As a child, our imagination will run wild with what scary things will happen to us after watching something creepy like Lost. (I had many weird dreams after CSI). We see images in our room that aren't really there, and we hear noises that we make up in our minds. Why? Because our imagination is going crazy as kids.
But I don't see those images anymore. I can explain what the noises are.
What the heck, Katie?
I'm losing my imagination...losing that childlike faith in the unknown.
If I can't even create nightmares anymore, how can I create something dreamworthy?
Growing up, for a few minutes, meant that I was getting braver. I'm becoming more mature.
Growing up means that the facts are supposed to be everything. TV shows aren't real, and aren't even worthy of becoming some sort of fear before you go to sleep at night.
So then, I ask you. What's the real nightmare here?

The Art of Faith

So it's seriously been too long since I posted. Sorry about that, (Amy).

I guess I'll just launch right into it, here. 

Over the past year at college, a lot of things have happened, and I feel as if I have been forced to grow up in a year. All the sudden, my entire childhood and teenage years are just gone, and now it's finally time for me to realize that I'm an adult. 

And I'm excited and scared to death.

There are times that I can't breathe because I'm so excited, and there are times that I can't stop crying because I'm so scared. 

I've never been so scared of something in my life. I understand things now. I understand the issues of money. I mean, before, I understood it, but I never really comprehended the importance of it. 

Now I don't understand why my parents bought me all the stuff I don't need, (and still ask for because we're selfish human beings).

Anyway, I guess I just needed a place to put all of these new feelings, so I'm writing to my lack of readers here.

God has been seriously speaking to me lately. For a while, I thought that I was good with Him, but then I stepped back and looked at my life this past year, and realized that I haven't been praying, or reading my Bible, or even really going to church, and it sucks. 

So lately, as I said, God has been speaking into my life, and sending people in my life that I need, or keeping people that are already in my life. I have been seriously humbled when I step back and realize that I have spent countless hours crying and thinking that I had nobody to turn to, and I could have spent all that time praying. 

Praying.

This word has a whole new meaning to me now. As a kid growing up in a Christian home, I always prayed, and knew what it meant, but now I GET it. 

I have a need to pray. 

I don't even know how else to say it. But all this worrying needs to stop, and all the praying I should have done before needs to start now. 

He has put a new desire in my heart to be closer to Him than I ever have been before. 

I'm so excited to grow up now.

Because now, growing up means that I understand everything better. I look at the world differently than I have my whole life. I can remember what having faith like a child means, and try to practice it as an adult. 

I can change, and I can change people. 

School sucks, but that's okay. Money sucks, but that's okay. Because I'm not supposed to worry about it. God will always take care of me, and that's the only thing that matters.

So, He tells me to paint on! I will keep taking my life one day at a time, and will keep adding beautiful colors to the painting that is my life. 

Because life is an art. 

I realize now that God is not the one holding the paintbrush. I am. Because my life is my choice. But he will always be there when I don't know what to do.