This year has truly been a year of me sorting through my life, looking at it all through Christ-focused lenses, and then paring it all down to only the things that point to Him. This has meant that I have had to make some very tough choices and employ some serious willpower to resist the urge to engage and invest myself (and my time) the way I always have. The truth is this: If you do what you've always done, you'll keep getting what you've always gotten. Another truth? It's this: Only a crazy person would keep doing the same thing over and over again and expect different results.
I've been ready and needing major changes in my life for quite sometime now but I haven't been exactly open to it all. Wouldn't you know it? I have been standing in my own way but more honestly God's way! *sigh* Good thing my faith in Him is (surprisingly very much) intact and I am not so stubborn that I can't admit when and how I am wrong in order to make way for Him to change both my heart AND my ways! Growing pains are always painful to experience but I'm delighted to report that the Lord is giving me some very obvious signposts that tell me without a shadow of a doubt that I'm going about things in exactly the way He wants me to. The investments that I am making in Him (before EVERYTHING else!) are returning dividends in spades! Every day I am amazed at the way He is providing for me and covering me with His unconditional grace, mercy, and PEACE. Truly I am blessed and I know it's because of my convictions and determination to repent for the wayward paths I've taken that have just about strayed me from Him. But enough of the veiled narration of my life. How about something obvious that He has done for me that I rarely share here.
One of the greatest challenges for me as a visual artist and photographer is balancing work and life. On one hand I love being at the easel or behind the camera because I am all about the endless opportunities that the Lord provides me with to share the view of His gorgeous intelligent design that is within the world. I am all about creating for Him and sharing the things He inspires me to create with others. Trouble with all of this is that it makes me a bit of a workaholic. Of this, I am very aware of how it all robs my family of some of the best of me and distracts me from answering what I believe is an incredible calling to be a better wife and mother to my husband and family.
I was a photographer and visual artist long before I became a wife and mother but I know that when I ventured to answer God's calling to become betrothed to my husband and then be a mother to my daughter, it would require me to be very careful and conscientious to not let any one role rule over the others. Because I am far from perfect, I have made the careless decisions to be more of an artist and photographer and less of a wife and mother. I stand corrected and in that I have made concerted efforts to not keep going about it in ways I know the Lord does not want me to go.
There have been a number of things I have done in order to choose my marriage and my daughter over my work and outside (of the family) interests. I haven't been alone in my efforts either. My husband has done the same sorts of things. You know what is yielded? We are walking closer with the Lord in our efforts to glorify Him in the covenant of marriage that He helped us make with Him and ultimately this is making us see our precious daughter (our only child) as the precious gift that she is both to us and ultimately to the rest of the world.
These days as my husband and I work on ourselves as well as on our own togetherness, we are relishing and cherishing the days, times, and quickly fleeting moments with our daughter. Truth be told, we never thought we would have a girl because boys run so rampantly on his side of the family. And for me? Well, when I was pregnant with my precious daughter, I was convinced that I was having a boy despite the pregnancy dreams that only showed me little girls! Even when I found out I was having a little girl it took me about a month and a half to get over the shock that I was having a daughter.
It feels like so long ago since I was pregnant with my little girl and it's no wonder because look at what she looks like now!!! As it's been said in a country song, "She's her daddy's girl and her mama's world..."
Every day I am thankful to have this precious little lady in my life. She regularly tells me I am her most favorite person in the world (though I am sure this could quickly change once she hits her teenage years) but for now? I am loving it all and soaking it all in and her father and I are enthralled with her with every day that passes and we are complimented (by others) of what a lovely little gal she is becoming.
I rarely to never to portrait sessions with her - the last time was when she was in her infancy - and that's by and large because I try my best to not always be behind my big cameras when I am with her. I take plenty of camera phone pictures of her but the other morning I did a morning mini session with her in the backyard of our home and that's what you see above. How blessed I am to have such a precious daughter as her and these pictures only serve as proof to me that I need to do portrait sessions with her way more often in order to really remember every moment of how blessed I am to have her in my life.
Sorry this has been such a long update but just wanted to share with you a huge part of the reason I am hardly active on this here blog. Thanks so much for sticking with me (this long) if you have and allowing me to share with you some of the pieces of my heart that mean so much to me.
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