Here is hopefully a near-final draft of a scholarship essay with the prompt; Describe yourself in 300 words or less. Be creative. So here, is my attempt, a little feedback would be magnificent.

I am both an artist and the work of The Artist. I am the workmanship of the Ultimate Creator, chosen, prepared, and purposed as an expression of the Grand Artist and creator.
Every Great Artist knows how to choose the medium best suited to his purpose; I have been chosen as a canvas to express the artistry, love, and beauty of the father. Starting out as only a simple canvas, however, I have attempted to make myself a beautiful masterpiece without the knowing eyes and gentle fingers of the artist. Torn and wrinkled, stained and ruined on the floor of the studio, God sees me there, tattered underfoot. Artist picked me up and holds me in the light, “Ah yes,” he says softly, “Here is this canvas.” He envisions a sketch he made long ago; now is the time for a new expression- a manifestation of himself seen in none of his other masterpieces.
He repairs the tears, washes my stains, stretches me across his frame, and seals me with sparkling white gesso. Once an ordinary canvas, shades of loneliness paired with elements of joy and deep tones of pain complemented by impasto love now cover the cloth. The master brings his brush through rivers of trial and sun-drenched countrysides of joy. Each day the painting becomes more vivid, colors begin to pop,
Layer upon layer an image of a young woman alluding to a later maturity emerges. An art educator, she teaches others how to be masterpieces themselves. Her very life inspires other to express, some still lying on the studio floor, dirty. When people gaze upon this masterpiece, they do not perceive canvas or pigment, nor the image of anything to behold. No, the viewer of this masterpiece sees a self-portrait, the face of the Great Artist.

"If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more does your heavenly father give good things to those who ask him?"

A few months ago, I posted a blog about how much God knows my needs and how perfect his provision is, if only i would ask him and recieve it.

This Christmas season has been amazing to me. Beyond anything I could ever ask or imagine. Some people talk a lot about how gift-giving is just materialistic and caters to our consumeristic society, but this year I have really come to embrace it; gift-giving has been a constant reminder of all God gives.

My mom says that my love language is gift-giving, which I think is probably true. I can see that, but it is strange becuae i don't see myself as a giving person. But this year I have really taken that and seen that it is true. I remeber thinking early in the season, before I even had time to consider seriously what i was going to get for my family, do i give my family gifts because I want to show them how much I love and care for them, or do i just do it becuase that is what has always been done?

In my family, we have always taken pride in giving the best gift. Every year we try to outdo each other, mostly with our youngest sister who is 11 and has downs-syndrome. Since I was little, me and my sister would make the annual trip to "Dollar World" in search of the perfect gift. We constructed elaborate displays and the faciest gifts for our parents since we (or my brother, at any rate) were old enough to reach our heads above the counters. I remember the year i bought my older sister the prettiest plastic bracelets, wrapped in a Christmas card box and, not being able to contain myself any longer, blurted the box's treasures on Christmas eve. The Christmas Eve spanking I recieved that year cured me of all secret-telling for the rest of my life. Or there was the year that the three of us constructed the most beautiful house out of cardboard and construction paper and filled it to the brim with pistacio nuts and landscaped with christmas tree candles and gum-drop trees.

This year has been one of the first years when I could see God's love clearly. This past semester and summer has taught me so much about being able to recieving God's love and being able to share it with others. When Christmas came, I noticed that my feeling towards the season was different than before- not a big climax or exception to the rest of my life, but a continuation of what God had begun. Today I look at the overwhelming amount of gifts God has given to me in the past few months, my entire life. I see that his greatest gift is the realization of what we truly are in Christ.

It is absolutely breathtaking to see how well God answers prayer, even prayers that I had not fully articulated. At the beginning of the season, my family began to ask me what i wanted, and i had no idea what to tell them. I am always afraid at Christmas to name specific things I want becuase I always wonder if they are all going to dissappoint. Its a little risky for me. So I just gave it to Abba. I asked him to not really show my what I really want, but just put it in my hand.

One of the most beautiful gifts God has given me over the past few months is the abiliity to trust him with my life, to lay those things down before I ruin them myself. He has taken my life out of my open hand and replaced me with this calm, this peace, this joy, this patience that I can only embrace when i let it go. This realization that the end of the world is already in God's hands and everything else he is going to let slip through his fingers.

If someone were to look into my life from a shop window, they might think that it is bad, a little scary, and quite painful. At the depths, it is. But to me, I look at my life and say, "Wow. I am standing in the midst of a rushing river, but i am not falling over." I look over to my side and I see someone, Guide, calmly standing there, moving my legs when it is time to take another step. And to my back is Daddy, holding me up, keeping me from falling over, and to my other side, Jesus, holding my hand, whispering love and encouragement in my ear. Sometimes each of these figures look different-- like people i know. My mom, my sister, my friends, my mentors and teachers. And sometimes its is just the three.

And i look around me and i don't feel frigid water numbing my toes and purpling my fingers, nor sharp rocks cutting my feet. I see a beautiful forest on the other side. Cool, refreshing waters all around me and warm hands surrounding me. There are times when the rocks to cut and the water does numb and the water runs down my cheeks, but the surrounding forrest and sky and smells overwhelm it quickly. I stand in the midst of a river.

This Christmas God has sent me a sort of a card with a gift certificate. One of those magazine cutouts in the shoe box promising something better later, to go with the other gifts he has given me throughout the year. I don't exactly know what the shoebox-magazine-cutout present is yet, but i know its good because who gives better gifts than the one who know me better than I do? Everyday i wake up and remind myself that I am alive because God has a purpose for me today and that purpose is good becuase God loves me enough to "Mourn as for an only son." That is gift enough, but he holds so much more, if only i would accept it. This year I have truly understand the meaning of Christmas-- and it is getting presents, its just a matter of allowing myself to take them.

So, ultimately, we can have Chrimstas all year round, but it will be no human act of wonder. We can have Christmas all the year around if we would open our eyes and recieve the gifts God gives to us, his precious children. What an even more meaningful gift when we realize he gives them despite what we deserve.

Merry Christmas-- Happy gift-recieving.

What does it mean to rest? Now that i have time to sit, do nothing, be nothing, presume nothing, i don't know how to do it.

Its Christmas Break. And for the first time in a few years, I have managed to not have an overwhelming amount of work and also no requirements for me to fulfill for myself. And I need this time just to rest in the arms of Abba, but i'm having a hard time seeing what that looks like. I need to simply stop. Just stop. Just be. Abba, show me how.

And thus marks the end of the first semester of my last year of high school. What a crazy ride. I feel very much at peace right now, but at the same time, also the need for a good cry. I guess thats what they call "letdown".

I haven't blogged for a while. usually when i do, its becuase i have something specific and profound to say, but lately, there have been so many things, its hard not to just ramble on about things that are only coherent to me. But I have so many things to share.... I guess thats my life: endeavoring to be and express something so much huger than me, I just become crippled in the wide sea of who God has made me. I don't say that because i'm really stuck on myself, but just because I love myself as God's creation. Isn't that great?

Anyway, I feel like this school year has really been a huge turning point for me. Like a 180 degree turning point. I know, you all are going, "well, duh, its your senior year, of course its going to be so totally different," but, no, really, its a different kind of different. I used to look at this time as the culmination of all I have endeavored to make myself out to be-- acedemically, spiritually, but i don't think I really considered it personally. This semester has been the beginning of some later culmination of who I am personally. I have left the other two behind.

I used to think i was a perfectionist. I used to think that God's will for me is perfection... that is, human achievement perfection, you know, never making spelling mistakes perfect. But God wants a different perfection from me-- one that is impossible for me to achieve and one that he has already taken care of. Its done. My perfection will never be a culmination of A+ added to A+, but me being who God makes me, good grades or not. Strangely, none of these thoughts have really ever occured to me before. Utter performance was the only world I knew.. until the past semester or so.

Weird, how God works, isn't it. Once you think you have it all figured out, he throws another log on the fire. Firewood... those are words I used to describe the frustration of my art at the beginning of the school year, and tonight, after months of personal turmoil over some paper, clay, and a little paint, I feel the warmth, but not the burn.

A few months ago, I attended the National Art Portfolio Review Day hosted by the Rocky Mountain School of Art and Design, where i was told by a representative from the Chicago Institute of Art that my work was a product of assignment and expressed nothing. Ouch. Poing. Yeah, ok, you're right. And thus the challange was accepted.

For nearly a month, I wallowed in the depths of my sketchbook. I looked through complex studies of composition and value and I know what they expressed about me: I fear rejection and therefore strive to express what people want to see. I do a good job of drawing pretty pictures that mean nothing besides screaming, "Please don't hurt me." I can see myself holding up a big canvas in front of my cowering face.

In the midst of the confusion, I produced one painting to express something. It is a wooden box in the midst of explosion. I hate it. Its terrible. The concept is great, but the technique cries out "Gesso me, quick!!" and so I wasted class time, wallowing in my sketchbook, believing lies about the judgement from others that I feared. And then, one day, feeling trapped behind a brick wall and being pushed through the heavy cement blocks at the same time, I talked to somebody about it-- my teacher (of all people!). And something inside me just said, who cares about mistakes? Try something. So I drew a person being pushed through a brick wall and trusted my instinct about a drawing i loved, but was afraid of rejection. these two peices are the heart of my portfolio.

My Senior portfolio class has been one of the most stretching experiences I have ever encountered. Having a teacher who voices little- either satisfaction or lack thereof- is hard for someone who lives life people pleasing. Its hard to do work in order to please someone when they clearly don't base your worth on what you do. All my teacher cared about was that i was doing something. I could have come in and colored in a my little ponies coloring book and matted them everyday and he woudln't have cared. It was scary. Like freefalling.

My parents don't understand the concept of artsistic expression as expression of the artist. When the Chicago critiquer told me my art was about nothing, my parents tried to decipher the foreign language the entire hour drive home. They still don't get it. I don't know if i even get it. But my point is this: its hard when you feel like you are out there all alone, not even your parents understand this thing you are investigating is.

Earlier tonight, my mom asked my if I pray about my paintings. My heart screamed a resounding "YES!! more than ever before!!" I see it as pure miracle that in the room beside me sit 8 peices of myself composed in one short semester. Ending the first quarter with 1 finished peice and 2 in scary states, even up to a week ago, I wondered what I would be able to show for all I had learned about myself in the past few months. So here I am.

Art, or life, for that matter, isn't really about appearing to have the right stuff in line. knowing the right techniques for holding a brush doesn't make you Picasso. Picasso's one goal in life was to be able to draw like a kid. His studies for GUerrnica, his most important work, look like a 6 year old drew them. And yet, you feel the pain. You stare straight into the soul.

Jesus said that unless you come to him like a little child, you will never be able to experience real life. This world, my most adored teachers, my parents, tell me that growing up in a culmination of all your acheivements. Write well, think hard and you will be a successful person. That's what they world tells me in hope that all they are striving for might not be wrong. But this past semester has taken that finger pointing off into the distance of all i could become and turned it upward and inward to see all that I am.

The most important peices to my achievement this year have not been finishing a really amazing porject or writing an unbelievable essay, but sitting down and talking to people. BEING. Being who I am. Not trying to achieve the impossible by existing as something I do not exist as. When Apostle Paul says that his best acheivments belong in the dumpster, he means his best essays, most beautiful poster-boards, and greatest paintings. That flawless trascript ought to be burned.

I don't know how other Kids get through this semester without God. I think I would be laying in a puddle of who knows what right now if it hadn't been for my Abba this past term. I look back on just the past week or two and wonder what magic happened. Definately nothing I could have done. Nothing that would have happened without God kickin it into yet a higher gear to pull me through.

Abba, I don't think anyone reading this blog can catch even a glimpse of what you have done in me. I don't think I even can. I wonder if my eyes are still squeezed shut. Sometimes the places you take me are scary. But i have this incredible peace and excitement-- and then there is also that tinge of anxiety, wondering what might come next. but you have that all taken care of too. Thank you for the people you have put in my life. Imagine, i don't have to have it all figured out, but that you use people to guide me along, like a hand in the small of my back, steering the way for me. Thank you dearly for Abby's encouraging note today. Definately a praise for what you are doing in me. Thank you for this blog, a place where I can at least attempt to share a little of you with those people who I have never even met or those who just live too far away for me to share my entire life with. Thanks for the journey. Thanks for doing the running. And thanks that you don't mind reading my note-card novels.

"When we reduce Christian Spirituality to math, we defile the holy. I thought that was very beautiful and comforting becuase I have never been good at math. Many of our attempts to understand Christian faith has cheapened it."

"all the wonder of God happened right above our arithmetic and formula. The more I climb outside my pat answers, the more invigoraitng the view, the more my heart enters into worship."

"I think we have two choices in the face of such big beauty: terror or awe. ANd this is precisely why we attempt to chart God, becuase we want to be able to predict him, to dissect him, to carry him around in our dog and pony show.

We are too proud to feel awe and too fearful to feel terror.

We reduce him to math so we don't have to fear him, and yet the bible tells us fear is the appropriate response, that is the beginning of wisdom. Does this mena GOd is going to hurt us? No. But i sttod on the edge of the Grand Canyon once, behind a railing, and though i was never going to fall off, I feared the thought of it. It is that big of a place, that wonderful of a landscape."

-Don Miller, Blue Like Jazz

It is hard for me to walk away from Math class when I come before God. It is ironic how I hate math with a passion, but cling to formula in the rest of my life. I like my lists. I like knowing what formula i should plug my X and Y into. Or do I? I don't think so.

I have grown up (or i should say am growing up in) a world based on formula. My entire life up to this point has been based on doing the right dance to get the right cookie from the right person, but i've never been satisfied with that. My dad says, "There is no such thing as 'I didn't mean to.' It's 'I didn't mean not to.'" That formula has been lodged into my brain for 17 years. Sometime a few years ago, I remember my mom saying to me after I got in trouble from my dad for something silly, "You don't have to be perfect." That was the first time I had ever heard either of my parents say something like that to me. "You don't have to be perfect." what an idea.

I like not having to have it all figured out. I like not having to guess what other people expect of me. I like knowing that I am ok if i don't know how to calculate this problem.

These quotes from Don Miller really resonated with me today. Being able to formulate Christianity isn't a sign of maturity in Christ, but a practice in emptying my insides for the sake of religion (that is, other people). Once, I heard someone say Christian maturity is knowing more each day my need for God. Strangely enough, the world says Christian maturity is how much you can know based on your own understanding.

The best kind of worship is wonder.

This has been one of those days. One of those days where you open your eyes and go, "Hey God. Didn't see you there...." er something. no, maybe not like that, but sort of.

Anyway, i don't really feel like giving the play by play, but it is just so cool.

I tend to wrestle a lot. With God? no, i don't think so. I think i wrestle with life and God is like the referee or something. Or maybe it is like Jacob, who wrestled with God and then realized that God had been there all along. I have been praying lately that God would wake me up to where he is around me and man, he totally answers prayer. Its like you can ask him a question, and then he gives you the answer. You just have to shut up long enough to hear the answer. I think this is just something that you have to experience to know what I am talking about.

Anyway, it seems like whenever I learn something big, it starts out with me being mad, skeptical, convicted maybe? But if I just get myself to sit through it, I always come out supergreat. today i was looking for random verses for a project and i came across James 1:2-3, which says, "consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, becuase you know that the testing of your faith develpes perseverence." This is one of those verses where I just want to tell the bible to shut up, you know? Its a "yeah, yeah, yeah" verse... utill I experience it. It goes on to say in the following verses, "Perseverence must finish its works so that you mabe be mature and complete, not lacking anything.... and it goes on. look up the rest of the passage, it basically explains my entire day.

I dunno. I got in this humungo fight with my mom today, which was really painful, but just happened to be an answer to a prayer... weird huh? I'd asked God to heal something in me and he used my mom screaming at me to do it. so i shed some tears, wrestled with who was right. The hardest thing was that it was right before youth group. Does that ever happen to you? Something happens to you right before you have to go be the superchristian, without any problems, and then all of the sudden you are really ANGRY! like you know you should forgive, but you are just angry, and you've been crying, and people look at you and know. And people are going to say "How are you?" all surupy and happy like 50 times and you don't know what to say. Oh, i'm ok. saunter away. I mean, really, you have no right to be angry. You, superchristian must be forgiving right away and acknowledge your sin and get it all fixed up without all the trial and wrestling that goes on inbetween. Ha! I really hate that question, how are you?

So the first person I saw tonight at youth group through my red eyes was someone asking me to take on another responsibility-- the thing my mom had just raked me over the coals about. WHat a God thing. I begged him on the drive over, "abba, don't make me be fake." He sent just the right person with the right question. Huge stuff.

I just think God is huge. He's a pretty cool dude. Aren't you Abba? Thanks. I thank you that your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Thanks for being my friend. Abba, thank you also for Matt/Josh. Thanks for his encouragement.

Josh, I think you are royally rad. Thanks for being part of the three people who read my blog.