Life is Beautiful

I love the movie October Baby. It has such an amazing message. One of the songs that is from the movie is called "Life is Beautiful" by the Afters. It's a beautiful song that I love.

As I was working on a drawing for a friend tonight, this song started to play on Pandora. Because of some struggles our family has been going through, I began to roll my eyes when the song came on.  I started to have a moment of sarcasm and suddenly it dawned on me that life is beautiful not because the world is perfect and dandy, but because there is a Savior who has redeemed me and has a plan infinitely greater than anything I could come up with.

 

Sometimes I get tired of the pain and drama that life carries and I honestly wonder why the Lord picked my family to go through the things we have gone through. But then I look back and see how He has made beauty rise from the ashes. I see how He has taken the ugly lump of clay and formed it into a masterpiece.

In the movie October Baby, it took a lot of pain and ugliness before Hannah (main character) saw that life truly is beautiful. It seems to me that the destruction and heartache that we go through is what teaches us what truly is beautiful in life. Beauty is not often what we perceive with our eyes and minds. It is more of a quiet total dependence on Christ. When what was once beautiful is destroyed, the only beauty that remains is Christ. When we see Christ as the only beautiful thing in our lives, suddenly life becomes beautiful because Christ is our life!

Life is beautiful.

 

 

 

Book Suggestion!!!

I am reading this amazing book called "Radical" by: David Platt. It is so insightful and has really challenged me in the way I live my life. I would strongly encourage y'all to read it no matter how old or young you are. I'll be writing more about it when I finish it. I'm about 2/3 of the way through and it is so powerful!

Radical

"The dangerous assumption we unknowingly accept in the American dream is that our greatest asset is our own ability. The American dream prizes what people can accomplish when they believe in themselves and trust in themselves, and we are drawn toward such thinking. But the gospel has different priorities. The gospel beckons us to die to ourselves and to believe in God and to trust in his power. In the gospel, God confronts us with our utter inability to accomplish anything of value apart from him. This is what Jesus meant when he said, 'I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.'"
~from "Radical" by David Platt
I started this book last night and am halfway through it. It is a radically life changing book! Very hard to put down and very convicting.

Precious Moments

The last month has been such a whirlwind of activity that I have hardly had any time to write up a blog post. Another full day is about to dawn, but I just had a thought that I wanted to share.

Life is full of precious moments that will not last forever. In this last month I graduated, was reunited with old friends, became more involved in our new church, attended an adoption picnic, a masquerade ball, had a ladies cooking coalition and much, much more. As I get older, life gets busier - in a good way, but I have to remind myself to savor each of these moments because they do not last forever. Just yesterday I was watching my little brothers and the realization hit me that very soon, not just one, but all four of them will be taller than me. My sisters are becoming amazing cooks and will probably out pass me at some point. My parents are grandparents now, and I'm an aunt.

Life is passing by very fast. These moments we have together will not last forever, but I plan to savor them as long as I can, because they are the best moments of life. The moments I share with my family are the ones I will never forget.

Confessions of a Bookaholic

"When I shop, the world gets better, the world IS better, but then it's not, and I need to do it again."

Rebecca Bloomwood - "Confessions of a Shopaholic"

 

After a long week of studying and a morning full of intense tests, I was ready to vegetate on Saturday night. And since the best form of vegetation in my mind is chilling and watching a movie, I decided to do just that. Except, rather than having a boring time by my lone onesome, my Mom, sisters and I decided to have a girls chick flick night. I had checked out this movie called "Confessions of a Shopaholic," which was definitely classified as chick flick and was perfect for the occasion. The whole story is about this girl - Rebecca Bloomwood - that is insanely addicted to shopping and is way over her head in debt. But the killer is, she is a journalist for a finance magazine. As in, she is drowning in debt while advising people on how to handle their finances.

And of course her boss is single, really good looking, and has a British accent.........

 

Anyhoo, at one point in the movie, a debt collector spills the beans and all of Rebecca's lies about debt come tumbling out. With hurt and disappointment, her boss/boyfriend asks her to tell the truth for once about why she shops.

That's when she says the above quote.

 

As you could probably guess, the movie ends well - honestly, it is a chick flick - but that quote stuck in my head so profoundly that I knew I needed to give it some thought. The predicament that the quote described sounded so familiar to me, which confused me because I am not a shopaholic AT ALL! I don't mind shopping once in a very great while, but in general it's not usually my thing. 

Suddenly it clicked.

I just had to change one word.

 

"When I read, the world gets better, the world is better, but then it's not, and I need to do it again."

 

For years I have used reading - namely novels - as my escape from reality. Whenever I was angry, confused, hurt, disappointed, or whatever, I would read a novel. I could predict a novel. People were perfect in novels. (And yes, perfectly flawed is a form of perfection. You avid novel readers out there know what I'm talking about.) :-) I could escape my own problems and read about the romanticized problems of others and the happy resolves that followed their conflicts.

Novels were my escape.

 

A couple years back, I challenged myself to read no fiction for a year. It was really good for me and I thought that I would never get that hooked on fiction again.

But....

Oh, you know, after a while you think, "I'll just read one." And then one turns into three and that multiplies into five and, well you get the idea. It became an addiction. I honestly didn't think of it as an addiction until I watched "Confessions of a Shopaholic." Sure, her addiction was shopping, but the way she looked at shopping was the same way that I looked at reading novels.

 

 

 

Now here's my point. Reading novels is not bad. However, if you look to novels, or shopping, or alcohol, or pot to make you happy, then you are making that thing an idol in your life.

Whoa! I know! I just compared reading a novel to smoking pot. That's extreme. But the more I think about this the more it becomes clear.  As our pastor said in his sermon on Sunday, "You cannot have Jesus as your buddy, your last resort, etc. He must be your Cornerstone, the only thing who directs your life." If in my search for happiness and joy, reading a novel comes before seeking Jesus, then I have made that silly book an idol.  Please don't misunderstand. It's not just novels. This applies to anything out there. The question I had to ask myself was, "Is Jesus my source of everyday happiness and joy? Or I am searching for that joy elsewhere?"

 

I still love novels. (Hey, I'm in process of writing a novel writing course to teach children that English and writing can be fun.) But Christ must be first and foremost. No fictional character can compare with Him. And that my friends is fact, not fiction.

Who Am I?

Who am I? I don't think I ever truly knew until I discovered who I am not. The true Kaila is defined by Christ. I don't think I ever truly understood who I was called to be and what the Lord wanted of me until I decided to reject it. When a purpose filled life suddenly becomes dry like a river in drought, you get a very clear contrast. For some reason I was delusional enough to think that maybe I would prefer a life lived according to my own plans and purpose. I became so obsessed with my "plans" that I was angry. I honestly did not recognize the person I had become, and I don't think my family did either. That's when I discovered who the real Kaila was and is.
The real Kaila is a daughter of the King of Kings. She is defined by Him, not by the world.

Dress Upscale

Between Pintrest and various fashion blogs, it seems to me that upscaling clothing is the thing to do these days. Since I love sewing and FINALLY got a dress form (which I love) I thought that I should try my hand out at the upscale thing.

 

I did manage to make a dress without a pattern recently, but the pictures aren't on my laptop right now.

Last Saturday night I volunteered at a gala for our local orchestra. Everything was pretty fancy so I needed and even gown. My problem is that I like sewing costumes and none of them were appropriate for the occasion. My Mom had just gotten a few bags of clothes from a friend and she mentioned that there was a pretty black dress in there. When I first tried it on, I was less than optimistic. It was big. It had no form. It was cold.

But it had a pretty floral design on the front which kept me from throwing it back in the bag.

 

Before:   

 

I purposely intended this to be a horrible picture - which was easy to do. :-)

The dress was a size medium, I guessing about a 12/14.

Like my purple socks??? :-) They add such an element of charm to the photo.

Ick!

 

After:

I put the dress on my mannequin and took in the waistline to give it some more shape and form.

Then I went to the store and bought some white satin and some black lace. I then cut a slit into the dress and added a triangle of the satin with black lace overlay.

I really liked the way it looked.

 

Yes, it was cold, but I worked underneath a heating vent for most of the night, so it was all good.

The orchestra concert was amazing. They played several selections with a masquerade/carnival theme to them. They played a medley of "Phantom of the Opera" songs and I about flew to other universe it was so lovely.

The swing band afterwards was equally amazing.

It was so fun to watch the couples swing dance. There were several times that I wished my brother was there so we could go dance a couple songs, but swinging around by myself was still quite fun.

 

 

Had some photo booth fun with a friend.

 

It was quite a wonderful evening and I did get lots of compliments on my dress.

First upscale project: Success!