The Effect of Cooking (Alternate Title: This Isn't About Adam Young)

I don't know what it is, but there's something about cooking and baking that makes me feel nostalgic and reflective.  As I'm sitting here typing this, my bedroom window is open to let the approaching Spring night's air into the house, greeting me like an old friend with its slight coldness and sweet smell.  The house is filling with aromas of lemon and herbs and garlic as dinner is close to being finished.

Whenever I begin to create something, whether it be food or photography or artwork, the business of my hands often leaves my mind open to think and wander.  Which is funny, because when I was younger, I used to love to think.  To be left alone with my thoughts and ponder the things I have observed in life, the allegories I saw around me that could allude to our walk with Christ.  But where I'm at now in life, being left alone with my thoughts and the heaviness of nostalgia is one of the last things I want to happen.

I am going to admit something here.  As much as I love Owl City and the witty lyrics and the vibe Adam's music gives off (happy music is a good thing), I hate it just as equally.  Why?  Because it makes me want to fall in love.  It doesn't even have to have anything to do with the lyrics.  The sound of his music makes me want to experience that moment of being head-over-heels in love.  Which is why I have done my best to not listen to his music for the past year and some few months.

Pair Owl City with cooking, and my thoughts go on a roller coaster of insanity.

Life is changing so quick and so swiftly lately.  And for someone like me, change is hard to deal with.  Of course, it depends on the type of change - little things here and there I can cope with.  Big, life-altering moments that happen to the people around me that I'm close to, and you can't spell disaster any more clearly.

Is it possible to fall in love with someone whom you have never met?  No.  Because that's not really love.  You only see a very small window of who that person is, and no matter how good they appear, they are still human and still have their faults.  To love someone is to know both the good and bad about them, and choose to love them anyways.  Choose.  It's a choice to love, not an accident, not magic, not something you fall in to.  It's a conscious decision.

At this time right now, I want nothing more than to shun love forever, to lock up my heart and throw away the key, to forever be done with the possibility of getting hurt.  Life happens, people change, they come, they go, they promise to be around and then aren't.  Depending on people, is a ridiculous thing.  We are fickle creatures, white hot with passion one moment, and coldly dark the next.  That isn't to say you shouldn't have friends that you can go to and build relationships with.  You just shouldn't depend on them in ways that they will inevitably let you down.

So where does that leave me?

I am so torn between wanting to love without abandon, risking the cost of being hurt, if it means that it'll draw me closer to Christ.  But at the same time, to love and to be loved - completely, fully, purely - scares me to death.  And I can't help but wonder if it's worth the risk.

But then, I see people around me.  People who have found love and who are so evidently joyful of what they've found.  People who have loved and lost that love, yet still press on, hopeful that love will come again, that it is still worth loving.

And here I am, a person who has never been deeply hurt by a broken heart, taking preemptive strikes against the possibility of being hurt by refusing to make myself vulnerable.

I see people who are in my life, and people - like Adam Young - who are watched by the whole world; each person that I see desiring to seek God more, pursue Him first, and let love rule their decisions.  And I want to be like that.  I admire people who are so evidently hungry for more of Christ, and who feed that hunger by praying, worshiping, loving with all they have.  I want to be like them, but ultimately, I want to be like Christ.
But my life is a twisted road going up and down hills.  I seek Christ, something happens, I try to fix it on my own or lose focus, and then lose the progress I made.  And back and forth.

I am sick of living like this.  Of being up and down all the time.  Of relying on myself more than I rely on Christ.  My heart is screaming to be let out, to take off like a bullet, chasing after Jesus.  To seek Him first, foremost, and always.  This desire, this hunger, is waiting to be filled.  To keep my eyes on the prize, not walking to the finish line, but sprinting towards it.  To forget everyone else around me and only be concerned with what He thinks.  To never be satisfied, never let go, but to use the tenacity that I've been given to struggle and fight for holiness, for purity, for love.

Perhaps it is time to take the risk.