Editing

This is a mull over blog post.
I'm kind of like a cow, chewing it's cud. I mull something over for a while, put it away, then later on mull it over again some more.

Katie the cow. Chewing her cud. Thinking her thoughts. And blogging.

I just had a thought about photo editing. I like photography, even though I'm not very good or creative with it. It sometimes is a form of worship to me. But that's another blog post.

And thanks to a dear friend, I now have access to some photo editing software. It's fun to edit all my photos to perfection. I can make teeth whiter, I can make colors brighter, I can take out unwanted things. Once, I took a whole porch swing chain out of a family photo for a friend.

 And then it struck me that that's what Jesus does. He helps us edit our lives. He takes out the bad stuff and makes the good stuff better.
It doesn't happen overnight. It takes work.
Just like photo editing takes work.

And in the theme of editing, there's the whole Donald Miller idea of editing your life story. That whole thought is fascinating to me. Donald Miller discusses this most in A Million Miles In A Thousand Years...check it out sometime. It really changed my life as I was caught in a rut and needed to think about what kind of story I was writing with my life.
I want to write a good life story. I want to write an adventurous life story. I want to write a life story with a good ending. And what I realized us that sitting around isn't making a story. It's when you get out and do the hard things, or the difficult things, or the fun things or the active things that make a story.
And that's how you edit your life. Take out the bad stuff, make the good stuff better.

For instance, one way I decided to make my story better was by volunteering once a week at a crisis pregnancy center. My life story at that point was, out of a job, looking, looking, looking, and spending a lot of time online "connecting" with the people around me (i.e. Facebook). That story had a lot of searching and not much action.
When I started volunteering it gave me new things to think about, new people to serve, and new ways to reach out. It stretched me and helped me. There was some action going on.

Sometimes editing my life story is a simple as opening a book and reading and learning.
Sometimes editing my life story is as complex as taking a trip.
Sometimes editing my life story is simply changing the way I think.
Sometimes editing my life story is just reaching out to others instead of focusing on myself.

Taking out the bad stuff, making the good stuff better.

Jesus is our photo/life story editor. He takes out the bad stuff in us by giving us grace and strength to overcome it. He makes the good stuff better when His love shines in us and through us so others can see Him in us.