so maybe this post is going to be super cheezy OR maybe it might encourage you. i don’t know. what i do know is that i need to share. i have to get it out and i might as well make y’all suffer with me! 😉

yesterday, i went to the movies with my dad and sister. it’s a normal sunday ritual: go to church, come home and nap, and sometimes see a movie. i LOVE that the movie theater near us has a super matinee price. $5.50 for a movie is the best. the movie we picked for this outing was rise of the guardians (hence the pictures). yes, i’m 23 and still completely obsessed with cartoon-ish movies. hello!!!! tangled is one of my favorites! haha. and YES! i am one of THOSE people who tear up at anything, even a hallmark commercial ( i am my mother’s child). of course this movie had it’s touching moments that were mixed in with some comical ones too. overall it was a CUTE movie and i would totally see it again. what i wasn’t expecting from the movie was how it was going to make me feel afterwards.

see, the movie is about jack frost and the other guardians: santa, the easter bunny, the tooth fairy, and the sandman. their world was being threatened by the one and only: boogeyman (whose voice was by jude law). the boogeyman wanted recognition and wanted all of the children of the world to know who he was. his way of accomplishing this was by filling their lives with nightmares and diminishing their belief in the guardians. part of it was a little sad to me, because the innocence of the children was being taken away. they were no longer unaware of the darkness in the world and had nothing to believe in. the more they started to doubt in santa and the easter bunny, the more the boogeyman had a foothold and took over their dreams.

this is where the cheezy-ness may come in. i feel like i can identify with those kids. on a different level, of course. i have dreams. BIG DREAMS. i have LOTS of things i want to do and accomplish, but i get discouraged and intimidated. this is when the darkness sneaks in and takes a foothold. a lot of the kids would stop believing in the guardians and their faith was gone. the enemy would take control and they lost their faith. it was sad, because i feel like that happens so often. i’ll get upset about how something doesn’t happen or turn out the way i expected and i stop believing. not only in my photography, but in my personal life and relationship with God. so often i’ll get discouraged and start losing faith. satan gets a foothold and i stop believing. i stop believing in the awesomeness of God. i stop believing that He is the Almighty and can conquer ANYTHING, even the trials i am struggling with. i let satan tell me that there is no reason for me to have faith. i lose hope. i give up. i let the devil win.

i can’t let that happen. WE can’t let this happen. all of us are going to go through hard times. maybe i say stuff like this a lot, but i know i need a reminder to keep going. we’re going to be discouraged and want to give up. we’ll come to a place where we’ve lost our faith and want to stop believing. but we can’t. we have to hold on. we have to have faith. we have to shut the devil down. so while this movie may seem childish (and who knows, this post might too haha), i’m glad it had an impact on me this way. while i may be 23, i’m still a kid at heart. sometimes it’s good to see life through the eyes of a child. it’s good to have a child-like faith and dream with no limits. don’t let anyone ever get in the way of that. keep fighting for your dreams to come alive and don’t stop believin’. also, sorry for getting the journey song stuck in your head now. haha.

happy monday! ♥