Eliana Chow

Sometimes when life is really wonderful, it’s impossible to put into words all that one feels. There are colors, poems, images, sounds, and numerous other beautiful things that cannot possibly be conveyed by a few hundred words in a blog post. When we start living life without the intention of documenting every little bit, we might find it more enjoyable. The pressure lifts. We can simply drink it in.

Forgetting about recording a moment creates a sort of oneness with life that I never experience otherwise. Colors seem brighter, emotions more real, textures more defined, and tastes more glorious. I’m more aware of everything and everyone around me. Instead of being concerned with perfectly capturing it, I can just live it, and that’s so freeing.

Sometimes I need to put the pen down, put the camera down, put the guitar down, and just look, feel, and experience.

At the same time, art heightens our appreciation of the world and our Creator. Art conveys things that at first our eyes fail to see. I find journaling to be a sort of communion with the Lord. As I write to no one in particular, my only audience is Him. I’ve wrestled through a lot of struggles by writing about them, and more often than not, the Holy Spirit uses that reflection time to light sparks of His wisdom and insight in my heart. I learn from those moments, even if I initially only sat down to scribble groans of utter confusion.

Or, perhaps our subconscious picks up on things we don’t understand in the moment, but when we look back at our records, we learn things from that freeze frame that we didn’t see at first.

It’s a balance between living and documenting, and there’s no cookie-cutter ratio that works for every human being. We all take in the world a little differently. But it’s good to have a little bit of both.