Danny & Alex

I did a photoshoot with some friends on Saturday. Danny Bowen and Alex Bradshaw have been together for 8 months, but these were their first pictures together. I'm so grateful that they let me practice my photography on them.

Camping

"Day after day [the heavens] pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. There is no speech nor spoken word [from the stars]; their voice is not heard. Yet their voice [in evidence] goes out through all the earth, their sayings to the end of the earth." - Psalm 19: 2-4 (Amplified Bible)

Sleeping under the stars. Waking up to frost-covered sleeping bags.




Tori, Rachel, & Sarah | The half-way mark on our 24-mile bike ride.


A break for food- mental and physical.


Rachel


A sunrise-kayak trip up the river.








Tori on the drive home.

Tori Thomas

This week I did an impromptu photoshoot with my friend Tori Thomas. It rained for the first time in weeks, so we decided to utilize the beautiful light and enjoy the puddles. Tori was a wonderful model.

And so she lives

Toes in wetness.

A very wet, but very happy Elsie Ruth.

The remains of chalk art on our driveway. If you can't tell, this once was Elsie's name.

Wiggle those teeth, girlie!

Today I jumped in puddles with Elsie. Today I splashed Jedi when he didn't want to get wet. Today I threw very wet balls for our very wet dog, Enya. Today I cheered Starbucks customers and made drinks just to their liking. Today I ate a cupful of whipped cream. Today I chose not to listen to the radio. Today I went running in the rain. Today I played the piano for the first time in a long time. Today I watched Disney's "Mulan" with some of my favorite people, and laughed my head off with the rest of my family.

And in the midst of it all, I thought, "So this is what it's like to live."

Surprises

Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord Who rises
With healing in His wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after the rain

In holy contemplation
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation,
And find it ever new;
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
Let the unknown tomorrow
Bring with it what it may.

-William Cowper, 1731-1800

Some such surprises from last week:

• A drive home at night reflecting on a hard week gone by, enjoying the beauty of the bright moon in a clear sky, then silenced and in awe of the beauty from the combination of truck headlights, fallen leaves, and a wet road.
• A box of Time Life photography books found at our library's book sale.
• Two hours spent wandering downtown Fredericksburg with my camera, then curling up in the window seat of my favorite coffee shop with a good book and a cup of chai.
• An unexpected gift of money toward my laptop.
• Dinner with one friend, lunch with another. An evening of pizza and a bonfire with one group of friends, an evening of hotdogs, fondue, and another bonfire with another group of friends. Good fellowship at all of them.
• Gingerbread syrup arrived at my Starbucks... which means I get my favorite drink several weeks early.
• My favorite sweater was lost for almost a month, but a friend found it for me this weekend.
• Memorized Scripture coming to mind at really good times.
• Finding myself in prayer in the midst of craziness at work.
  
• God showing me the depths of my own heart in painful ways, but finding the pain to be good.
  
• God's truth prevailed, healed me, ministered to my soul, sought me out, firmly grounded, sweetly, convicted, chastened, forgave, revealed, once again found preeminence in my heart.
  
  It was a good week.

Thoughts on Psalm 23

You make me lie down in green pastures. You remove my strength, limit my endurance, or in some other way actively call me to spend times in rest and recuperation. You break me so that You can bind me. You wound me and heal me again.

You then gently lead me beside still waters, allowing me to drink deep from the fountain of healing- the fountain of your delights.

You restore my soul- my emotions, which have long been abused and misused by myself and others in a search for fulfillment; my will, which has been wrongly strengthened in evil and wrongly broken in areas of good and growth; and my mind, which is daily polluted and inundated with perverse "truths" and worldviews contrary to Your Word.

"You restore my soul" is a promise from You and an act of faith in me.

It is truth, and it is beautiful.

Passion... for what?

Life is too short to live without an all-consuming passion for God. Do I have that passion? What am I passionate about? What am I willing to die for? I'm willing to take personal risk to deepen my knowledge of God. Am I willing to risk so that others can deepen their knowledge of Him? What would my life and current circumstances look like if lived with reckless abandon and purposeful passion for God?

Last week I attended IPS's Prizewinning Photography. I knew I was attending much more than a simple course on taking pictures. I knew the week would be intense on many levels, both personally and photographically. I knew the Instructors would challenge my perspectives and my spiritual walk. But I didn't expect to finish the course with so many questions. Yes, the technical instruction was absolutely amazing. But woven through it all was the challenge to confront the fear and pride inside of me and pursue the amazing, God-centered purpose I am called to live.

What does faith look like? What does passion feel like? How is the glory of God displayed in my life? Am I living in fear or walking in faith? What does it look like for me to trust God with all of my life?

It is remembering that God is a God of love. How does He view the person I see through my lens? It changes my view of this person. It changes how I capture the image of this person.

It is remembering that God is enough to supply all that I need. This changes my interaction with other people, my use of my camera, and my view of myself.

During our first photo shoot on Monday afternoon, I met a man who works a part time job sweeping sidewalks and cleaning up the trash around dumpsters so that he has time to watch TV every night. His face lit up as he mentioned this season's shows and speculated as to whether or not they would last. His all-consuming passion is television, but his life is empty. I asked if I could take his picture, and he agreed. When I asked him to smile, he made a half-smile, half-grimace contortion that caused a deep feeling of sadness inside of me. It's as if he was in prison, and his passion for TV was the only thing that gave him a chance to escape the life he chose to live.

I walked away without sharing my freedom with him.

As I looked at his face on my print that night, I started asking myself questions. What is my all-consuming passion? What is my God-centered purpose? What does that look like applied to my personal life? Is my passion to glorify God (a God-centered passion), or to ensure that my walk with God is sure and deep (a Sarah-centered passion)? I realized that my current passion for personal spiritual development is nothing more than a prison of selfishness. God-centered passion drives me to risk for other people. Sarah-centered passion consumes me with fear of failure in the face of such a risk.

Which will I choose?

For my determined purpose is that I may know Him [that I may progressively come more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in the same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death... Not that I have now attained [this ideal], or have already been made perfect, but I press on to lay hold of (grasp) and make my own that for which Christ Jesus (the Messiah) has laid hold of me and made me His own.

Phil. 3:10, 12 AMP