Monday, February 14
Happy Valentines day! Sadly enough mine wasn't too special, but I'm sure someone somewhere had a spectacular day, and that's good to know! I pretty much just went to my internship and took it easy. I definitely had some attacks from Satan today, and it was incredible because my roommates prayed with me and things just completely changed. It was pretty unbelievably awesome. It reminded me of the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus." When we started praying I felt like crap, but by the end of it, after carrying my burdens to God, I felt the weight lifted off of me, and I was consumed with God's spirit. Anyways, I thought about posting the lyrics from the song that are specifically related, but I think I'll post the whole thing cause its all really awesome:
What a Friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear!
What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!
O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear,
All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer.
Have we trials and temptations? Is there trouble anywhere?
We should never be discouraged; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Can we find a friend so faithful who will all our sorrows share?
Jesus knows our every weakness; take it to the Lord in prayer.
Are we weak and heavy laden, cumbered with a load of care?
Precious Savior, still our refuge, take it to the Lord in prayer.
Do your friends despise, forsake you? Take it to the Lord in prayer!
In His arms He’ll take and shield you; you will find a solace there.
Blessed Savior, Thou hast promised Thou wilt all our burdens bear
May we ever, Lord, be bringing all to Thee in earnest prayer.
Soon in glory bright unclouded there will be no need for prayer
Rapture, praise and endless worship will be our sweet portion there.
Wednesday, February 16
So my internship has been pretty cool. Sure driving downtown is kind of a hassle and its a pretty ghetto place, but all the people I work with have been totally awesome. They are all really cool and chill and have been very welcoming to me. When I'm not doing intern duties or helping out people on projects, I do tutorials to help me learn and advance my skills with software. Lately I've been doing a lot of tutorials with Adobe Illustrator to help me learn that. Here are a couple vector images that I made from scratch in Illustrator (of course with the guidance of tutorials).
After I got back from my internship I worked out with Jake and Chordle. I'm sure if I mentioned yet that I've started working out again, but it's really been awesome, and I think I'm getting stronger than I did when I was on P90X even. I guess I have Jake to thank for that, he kind of created this workout plan. Anyways, it's been really awesome, and I'm excited to see how I improve over the semester.
Thursday, February 17
Tonight we had a spectacular group dinner! Jake, Michelle and I wandered around Ralph's trying to decide what we could make a large quantity of for dinner. After a couple debates with Jake about certain foods having too much trans fat and being unhealthy, we decided on taco salad. I must say, it was quite the delish, and it made quite the dish! During our meal we
watched The King's Speech [*warning SPOILERS*]. I really enjoyed it a lot. It was a quality film with a great message. From an aesthetic viewpoint, I certainly did not enjoy their intentional desire to break the "rules" of cinematography. Sure it was artsy, sometimes it was beautiful, but a lot of times it was really distracting and not contributing to the story. But those are really my only complaints about it. The set design, acting, costumes, and writing were incredible. Honestly I have no idea how they made the film for $12mil. The message of the story speaks about many things: rising to the occasion, embracing humility, overcoming fears/obstacles, and maybe most of all the power of speech. What an incredible gift that God gave us the ability to speak. With our mouths we can speak life or death, we can encourage and we can uplift or we can destroy and tear down. Colin Firth's character is not at all thrilled about being King, nor is he thrilled about humbling himself and admitting his errors before Geoffery Rush, but as he sees his world darken on the verge of war, he sees the necessity of him to let go of himself and stand to be the leader that his country needs him to be.Friday, February 18
My internship was pretty awesome today, I got to meet the sound designer and he basically gave the other intern and I like a two hour lesson on sound design. Being the current sound designer for one of our short films, it was way cool getting to see a professional work and get some good practical advice from him on mixing and editing. After the internship I worked out and then we had some friends come over. I was pretty tired though and didn't really feel like hanging out so I just went to bed. Isn't that weird?
Monday, February 21
Yay for President's Day! I got work off! I think that's the first time that I have ever heard of anyone celebrating and getting work off for President's day, but hey, I'm not complaining! Plus Washington was a totally legit prez, and its his bday. Anyways, I kind of just spent the day doing homework anyway.
Here's a special effects test shot that I made to see if I can do this effect in film we may shoot:
If the video above doesn't play, click the link below:
http://www.blogger.com/video-play.mp4?contentId=c148513d816d6320&type=video%2Fmp4
Wednesday, February 23
I was under the assumption that things were improving in life, but I read something online this morning that threw me for a loop. Foreshadowed by my discussion about "The King's Speech" I would like to revisit the comments about the power of words. It's so unbelievable how powerful our words are. And just to think that the moment we say them, or the moment that we type them and press "Send" those words will never ever be taken back. They are burned into history forever. That's why it is so important that we are cautious about the things that we say, and the way that we say them can affect the people that hear them. The bible is so clear on the importance of thinking before you speak and not speaking out of emotion. On the flipside, it is so important that we understand situations and circumstances, before assuming the meaning of something. Satan can easily twist words in our minds to mean something that they never were meant to mean. Speak with wisdom and listen with discernment.
Well whatever worries I had were instantly diminished and put on hold. All of the students were emailed to come into school this evening. None of us knew what it was about. When I got into the classroom I saw all the teachers were there. All of them... something was clearly wrong. Our school director spoke to us and told us that one of our classmates, Joshua Malenke had gotten in an accident that morning and died on impact. I was completely shocked. It was different from any experience with death I've ever had. First of all he was my age, he had a loving girlfriend and family and friends. He had dreams and goals just like me and now he was gone. Secondly, he was unexpectedly gone in a moment. He wasn't recovering in the hospital.
I couldn't go to the hospital and visit him and pray for him. He was just gone. It was a hard thing to accept. We got into small groups and talked about Josh and prayed about everything. When we all separated, my roommates decided to have people come over to our apartment and pray and worship. No one understood this situation, but one thing we understood was that God was the only place we could turn. We had like 15 or 20 people come to our apartment and turned on some worship music and just prayed. (Josh is on the far right in the pic). It makes me realize how quickly life can be given and taken. Any of us could be gone in a moment, and although we should not live in fear of that, we should realize that we are simply not in control, and realize the pertinence of our relationships with people. Are we truly living our lives rightly? Do those of us that we love really know how much they mean to us? These are thoughts that were running through my mind, and I made sure to let those people that are most important in my life know how much they mean to me. I can't even fathom the pain that Josh's family and friends are going through. I don't even want to think about how my family and friends would feel if I died. Please, if you are reading this, please pray for Josh's family, his girlfriend, and everyone who's life he blessed. Pray that God will mourn with them and love them and take care of them.Thursday, February 24
Because of everything we heard about the night before, classes were cancelled for Thursday. Some of us guys felt like it would be good for us to get together for breakfast so we went to one of the apartments and made a big breakfast together. Afterwards we went over to the school where our professors had prepared a type of memorial time for Josh. We worshiped and prayed together and shared stories about Josh. Although we were all still in a lot of shock and confusion, it was a very healing time. Life seems very relentless right now. Later that night I faced my biggest trial yet. I learned some things (unrelated to Josh's death) that have forever changed my life.
Friday, February 25
Today is Holly's 24th birthday! Hopefully her day went better than mine. I can't really determine whether today or the day before is the worst day of my life, because of the things that I had learned last night (once again this is a situation separate from Josh's death). I never imagined that I could feel a pain as terrible as what I feel now, and its probably only a small fraction of the pain that God feels right now. I stumbled through my day at my internship on the verge of tears and came to my apartment to the comfort of my closet. The comfort of the carpet that my face and tears have become so familiar of. I read through like a quarter of the Psalms today, and it brought so much pain to read. I've never related to them so much in my life. I could feel the pain in those words because I now know a piece of that pain. Today, my heart's greatest desires in this world were shattered. I have become nothing. What more does God want of me? I will give it to him, because it has no comparison to what I have lost. No comparison. In the midst of my destruction I lift my hands to worship my God, my king, my savior. I will embrace the overwhelming wall of pain as it destroys me so that I may become nothing and Christ may become everything.
Saturday, February 26
Of course, another rough day. But God is doing a tremendous work in my heart.
I went to Barnes & Noble tonight with some friends. I love Barnes & Noble! I got the book of Aesop's Fables. Although not as spiritually related, they are similar to how Jesus tells parables. I think reading them will benefit me greatly because it is an example of my goals through filmmaking - to tell a story that speaks a message of truth. Later that night we had a bunch of people come over to our apartment again to spend time in prayer and worship. As much as having Josh gone is awful, it truly is bringing many people closer to Christ.
Chordle has been through a lot of crap in his life. He gave me a book that he read in the midst of his greatest pain and trial, so I've been reading this book called Shattered Dreams by Larry Crabb. It's not an enjoyable or comforting read at all, but it speaks a harsh truth that the Bible strongly professes - that life is not about us and the things that we have a right to, it is about giving everything to God and serving him with everything.Sunday, February 27
This is the big day - the 83rd annual Academy Awards. Well since my church is on Hollywood Blvd a couple blocks from the Kodak Theater, we decided to walk over there after church.
They had the whole street shut down and fenced off for like a straight mile. And I swear there was as many police and security there as there are for the flippin president. So we saw the red carpet and all that jazz. It's pretty cool, I enjoy the Oscars but in many ways it's sad too, because so many people here worship the god of Oscar. Not to mention celebrities. But no worries, I won't go on an anti-pop culture rant. 
There was a big Oscar party held at our school that night, tons of free food and awesomeness. We also all voted on who would win what Oscars.
Out of the 24 awards I guessed 16 correctly - not incredible, but I was second highest in our class so I got a free iTunes gift card! No complaints there! Later that night I got to hang out with a good ol' friend from Evangel - Caleb Pyles. He came over and we got to spend some good quality time talking and catching up. Hopefully we'll have some more great opportunities to hang out in the future.Friday, March 4
Work was really awesome today. I was asked to design a logo for a project (and my recently learned Adobe Illustrator skills were put to good use!) Then after that I was asked to create and animate the logo in the Cinema 4D (a 3d modeling/animation program) so my skills taught by Chip Stanek in my 2D/3D Animation class were put to good use. And it was a lot of fun. The video hasn't been produced yet, so I probably can't post my work, but when the video is released I will make sure to put it up here.
Today was Jake's 23rd birthday so a couple friends and I took him out to dinner at this FANTABULOUS restaurant called Maggiano's. It was so awesome. We drove about 30 mins north of Burbank to go to this place and then we ordered the biggest meal ever. (You get free refills of dishes so we would get our plates refilled with food when we were done eating and doggybag it, so we literally left with as much food as we ate... and let me tell you that leftovers are a wonderful thing for a 22 year old bachelor!) It was sooo good though, this restaurant is def one of my new faves. Anyways it was so awesome. I really needed that- to just get away from everything to relax and enjoy a great dinner for 2.5 hours with some of the greatest guys I know. It was a really healing time for me. It has definitely been one of my favorite nights so far in LA.
Saturday, March 5
For a while now I have been wanting to try
my abilities in acting... not because I think I have any natural talent or even a desire to pursue it, but because I think it would be beneficial for me as a director, to better understand the mind of an actor. So anyways, I was given a good opportunity to act in some of my friends' short film. I got to play the main role and it was so much fun. We shot most of it out in the desert and it was worth it just to spend the day there. It made me feel like being back home... dry dirt and mountains. So beautiful! Sunday, March 6
Totally random thing happened at church today: I'm walking out of the sanctuary and I see that the guy in front of me has a "Skinny Improv" messenger bag with him. "What the heck?" I thought to myself, "Are there other Skinny Improv's around? Is it a chain? I thought it was just in Springfield." So I tap him on the shoulder, "Hey are you from Springfield" "Yeah" "Oh cool, yeah I noticed you have a Skinny Improv bag, are you part of the group?" "Yeah!" So anyways, I find out that it's Jeff Houghton, the dude that like founded it, and apparently he just moved to LA. So anyways, it was one of those "small world" moments. Pretty cool!
I must admit that after the trauma I have faced, I kind of wanted to stop writing my blog (surely you can tell that my blogs have been very belated) but I guess that would be in contradiction with the name of my blog. LOL. So I decided to write it anyway, to continue sharing my journey's through life. I guess I could rename my blog to "This Blog Does Not Give Up" lol. Well aside from that dumb joke, I realize that few of my words in this blog (and in future blogs) will be happy. It is by far my darkest season, my lowest valley, and driest desert yet. But if going through this will glorify God, if it reveals his truth and life and love, if it inspires others, than it is worth it. Every morning I wake up in peaceful bliss for a split second and then within moments I relearn the truth. I relearn my position of disbelief and pain. And it really does pretty much happen every morning. I am the weakest I have ever been, yet I am the strongest I have ever been because of God. I am destroyed. I am nothing but the dust which I lay in. But I have been found in the aftermath. In the rubble, in the destruction of Luke Salewski, I have found Christ, and have begun the journey of dying to myself everyday.
A couple days before my world fell apart, the new Hillsong album "Aftermath" was released. I'm pretty sure the timing was perfect. I have been listening to it a ton. The title track "Aftermath" has become my anthem. Here is the song and the lyrics:The skies lay low where You are
On the earth You rest Your feet
Yet the hands that cradle the stars
Are the hands that bled for me
In a moment of glorious surrender
You were broken for all the world to see
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath
Freedom found in Your scars
In Your grace my life redeemed
For You chose to take the sinner's crown
As You placed Your crown on me
In that moment of glorious surrender
Was the moment You broke the chains in me
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath
And in that moment You opened up the heavens
To the broken the beggar and the thief
Lifted out of the wreckage
I find hope in the aftermath
And I know that You're with me
Yes I know that You're with me here
And I know Your love will light the way
Now all I have I count it all as loss
But to know You and to carry the cross
Knowing I'm found
In the light of the aftermath
I'm beginning to see how life is really not about me at all, it's about God. I am here for him and not for me. If there is any good in me, if I ever say anything true or right, it is God, not me. Really the only thing that we have control over is free will. God gives us the ability to make our own choices and then he does the work. I used to think I had a right to this life to everything, but nothing belongs to us. Our bodies, our hearts, and souls, they belong to God, and we are only stewards of them.
I am emotionally sick and devastated. I don't wish this pain on anyone. And I will do whatever I can, whatever the Lord wills me to do, to prevent anyone from ever having to go through this pain or anything worse. I am filled with a new hope for heaven. Sure heaven has always sounded cool, but it's not really an anxious desire of our hearts, not until we see how dark life can be. Now I look forward to the day when I will hear the words, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Rev. 21:3-4) Another song I have held to dearly is "You Hold Me Now" by Hillsong. Sometimes I sit in my closet and play this song on my ukulele. I can hardly get through the chorus without bawling my eyes out.
On that day when I see
All that You have for me
When I see You face to face
There surrounded by Your grace
All my fears swept away
In the light of Your embrace
Where Your love is all I need
And forever I am free
Where the streets are made of gold
In Your presence healed and whole
Let the songs of heaven
Rise to You alone
No weeping no hurt or pain
No suffering You hold me now
You hold me now
No darkness no sick or lame
No hiding You hold me now
You hold me now
In this life I will stand
Through my joy and my pain
Knowing there's a greater day
There's a hope that never fails
Where Your Name is lifted high
And forever praises rise
For the glory of Your Name
I'm believing for the day
Where the wars and violence cease
All creation lives in peace
Let the songs of heaven
Rise to You alone
For eternity
All my heart will give
All the glory to Your Name
By grace, in spite of my failures, God gives me the strength to forgive and love. I'm done taking care of myself... and there's not much left to take care of, so I will devote my life to taking care of others. At the end of the day, I lift my broken arms to God and worship him. My heart has been shattered beyond my imagination but the pieces are in his hands. And through my tears and ashes, I will still proclaim that God is good, he is always good.
