God has provided so many ways out of my darkest times and personal struggles and I would like to share that story and presence with others.For much of my life I have battled with depression, suicidal tendencies, and isolation. I felt incredibly unloved and unwanted by those around me and by God as I couldn’t understand the love of others. I have grown up in a financially stable household, however not without sacrifice from my parents’ presence in my childhood. For many years I only saw my father six weeks a year maximum and often only a couple days at a time. I believed he hated me as he was always away for work and we rarely cordially communicated; my understanding of his love was very limited and that lack of understanding and unwillingness to listen led to many heated arguments and regretted words. At some point, I was guided to Ephesians 6:1-4. God used these verses to reform my understanding of my relationship with my dad and acted as a catalyst for my father and I to rebuild our relationship. God worked in my heart to forgive my father for the times he had provoked me to anger and humbled me to honor my parents by no longer casting aside my relationship with them but rather resolving our conflicts. Thanks to God my father and I have a relationship I can gladly say I can cry tears of joy over. This relationship with my father has also allowed me to better understand God’s love for his children in that it may not seem he is as active because often there is work being done behind the scenes we can only understand when we look back to see how he has watched over us. I am a designer and my goals for this career is to work behind the scenes. With so many people in this world there are even more problems. There are many brands dedicated to serving people with specific needs such as those with Alzheimer’s or cataracts and other disabling health circumstances. Most people love items designed for specified purposes, however the conscious design is most appreciated by those who it is meant for. I want to be one of those designers that places the needs of others before myself that they can better appreciate the life God has given them as well as to know that there are workers behind the scenes looking out for them. We are merely invited to work in God’s field.

My goal is to be an automotive designer, though how far that goal I can only see when I get there. My desire for this field stems from a shared passion for cars between my dad and I who rebuilt our relationship tinkering away at project cars he picked up. The true nature of my goal is to design a vehicle that I can be proud of and be able to share that with my father. Automotive designer has been an industry in which there have been constant improvements due to regulations and standards rising. My desire is to be one to raise the standards of safety, design, and experience one can obtain from a vehicle and the utilities it provides. With new technology and rising interest in electric vehicles there’s also an entirely new facet of automotive design to be built upon. I hope to be one of those foundation builders so that I can share that joy with my dad and watch it as it grows through the work of countless others.

I like this question as it really digs deep into what truth is and what are the origins of truth. The way I want to define truth for this essay is a piece of information that has been verified by authority and by experience. To explain this using the Bible there exists the fact that the bible is true in what it says which is a claim made by God, the authority, and when the earth is created in Genesis the truth is found in that a being of authority verifies its truth, God, and there is the experience of that being done which also comes from God. Now to apply this to the personal truth people claim there exists an authority claiming its truth and there are experiences that verify the truth. The biggest difference in these two types of truth is that God's truth is objective while a person's truth is subjective. To back this point I would invite us to look at Job. Within Job we are given many perspectives of truth; We are given God's truth in the scenes within his court, Job's truth, and the truths of Job's associates. With the perspective we are given from God we see that Job's suffering comes from trials that God has permitted Satan to do to try and get Job to curse God. With Job's perspective we see awful experiences happening to him. Through Job's acquaintances we see condemnation and pleading for Job to repent to God because the truth they know is that the unjust shall be punished. Throughout the entire book Job, with the truth he has experienced, calls to God that he would not be put through these trials. Yet, Job does not have the full truth of the situation that God has and therefore his truth is subject to his experience and knowledge. At the closing chapters to the book of Job, God reveals that he knows the whole truth of all that goes on and that this truth is beyond Job's ability to understand. In Isaiah 55:9 the Lord declares, "for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." There is only one response that the subjective truth of man has when confronted by God's truth and that is humility as seen within Job 42:3b for "I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know." A false or incomplete truth carried around as "my truth" pales in comparison to the complete truth of God.

Art and design hold a special place in my heart as I have had the opportunities to build relationships through artwork that I enjoy and that I have made. Originally, I was skeptical as to whether I wanted to be an artist or designer and I chose to go into mathematics education. Thankfully, a friend of mine, for whom I had made a drawing of Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings, saw me struggling in that major and they asked me to reconsider. I remained skeptical and yet this friend assured me multiple times and would tell me of the complements they would get on small drawings I would gift them to encourage me. Now, after being enrolled in an art and design program for a bit over a year, I have made a number of artworks and a few that I might consider being proud of. My favorite work so far is a pitcher designed after a Vietnamese pitcher I saw in a museum catalog; the work in question is a white pitcher with blue feather and flame decals with a beautiful, curved handle. I crafted my own version of the pitcher adding details to my preference and overall learning a horde of knowledge about ceramics. This piece I constructed with coils to build up the unique shape and then added slabs to add volume and shape for details. For the glaze I coated the pitcher in a red iron that oxidized and gave the piece a beautiful metallic shine with subtle hues of red. This piece is meant to be a phoenix and perhaps it holds meaning to me as art and design was a passion that I left dead in the past, yet it reignited and has brought me to people and places I didn't know I wanted to meet. Officially I have titled this piece "The Phoenix," but when I originally pieced it together the friends I made while learning art and I affectionately called it "Das Goose." I desire to work at an automotive design firm or work for an automotive company after college. I have a tremendous respect for art that calls out to the world, but I do not believe that is my place. Instead, I want to bring designs to the automotive world that aim to help others and, at the same time, bring meaning into that which I design. As a Christian, it is a right goal of mine to create with intent and purpose in reflection upon the fact that I was created in such a manner. Psalm 139:13-14.