The past few days I have buried myself in preparation for my trip to Denver next week. My sister calls it procrastination…I call it working well under pressure. Next week will stretch me beyond anything I have ever experienced (next to childbirth…ewwww….oh, and motherhood of course.) I’ll be teaching for a week on photography and how it relates to Godly communication.

The topic isn’t stretching at all…seriously? You ask me to come, speak for a week on a subject that I love? Get to take pictures and help others take better pictures, all while connecting our souls to Christ and working under one common goal…to see God glorified on our photography? Um…yeah…sign me up :)

What is stretching to me are the unknowns. I’ve talked a lot about fear on my blog here, I hope to keep talking about it because more often than not…than is when you moms speak up to me and relate. I love knowing I’m not alone, and that you aren’t either.

On Sunday morning I’ll get on a plane, by myself. People…that is a non existent occurrence. The last time I got on a plane by myself was never, and the one time I traveled alone I had two children under 3 years old with me.

There’s the unknown of meeting new people, teaching something that I am passionate about and wanting so much to get my passion across.

It will happen, and I am not alone. That is the wonderful thing about this process…I am not scared at all. I am not lonely in my travels. I am excited, anxious in a good way, confident and courageous. I’m just positive I’m going to throw up before the first class…. :)

Is God asking you to grow in certain areas of your life? Are you obeying?

I’m sitting here still in my pj’s at 12pm. I’ve got a splitting headache, which is rare now. I grew up with headaches, literally, every. single. day. as a child. I’m not kidding or exaggerating, I wish I was. I probably should have cut my extremely long heavy hair, but of course the parental units thought it was lovely…and then I grew up thinking that my hair was my one beauty. I’ve spent years going back & forth about my hair. I now wear it very short, and I love it. I had to slough off years of untrue feelings that if I cut it, so would I be cutting off my looks. No one specifically told me that, I made it up partly because of all the looks I would get and the compliments. I liked the compliments, I didn’t want them to go away. So I kept my hair and waited for the headaches to go away on their own.

Years down the road my headaches stopped, with no thanks to tests, medications and numerous doctors. I have no clue what caused them to stop, except for divine healing. I waited for years, day after day, sometimes minute after minute for them to stop. I would dread waking up the next morning because I knew the headache would still be there. I don’t know why God choose to heal me so many years later. Why not as a small child? Why not when I was in junior high? Why not during high school? Why as an adult?

I really don’t question it, I just accept it. It was a miracle and I’m happy it even happened to me. Now when I wake up with a headache, my mind immediately darts back to when I was just a little girl, laying on my mom’s lap in the middle of a church service, her stroking my long black hair, waiting for the throbbing to subside so I could go play with my friends. It finally grew to a point that I just stopped telling those around me that I was in pain…why bother them? I catch myself doing that with my husband. He reminds me he doesn’t know my pain, emotional or physical if I don’t tell him about it…what a concept!

Some events going on right now in my life and I’m sure in yours, are like that annoying headache. It is there, constantly, throbbing, you can’t get away from it, but there is nothing you can do about it other than wait it out. Whether you choose to retreat to a dark, cold room by yourself or continue to participate in life with others…we are all waiting for something to happen. For the meds to kick in. For the Great Physician to tell us what is going on. Or for others to stop contributing to the pain.

Whatever you are waiting on right now…be strong and courageous…you’re not waiting it out alone.

She inherited my long heavy locks…I call her “hair”. It is definitely not her one beauty…

Some days feel like years, some like seconds. Husband walks through the door, dinner is nowhere near ready, the kids are searching for pajamas out of overflowing unfolded laundry baskets, baby has dried applesauce in her hair and son won’t stop asking if he can have a brownie for dinner. The time of 3pm to until the kids go to bed, around 7pm, is absolute pure chaos. Sometimes it is loud chaos, evident to every one in the house, and sometimes it is quiet chaos, only my mind swimming with thoughts of everything I need to do and be until the little ones are fast asleep. If you are pulling your hair out at around 5:30pm every day…please know that someone else out there in the Northern part of California is pulling her hair out too.

Now this all being said, this time of day is one of my absolute favorite. This is testing time, will I succeed these few hours with my hair intact? Or will I lay my head on the pillow…asking for forgiveness and saying tomorrow is a new day. Either answer is fine…because we serve a God who gives second chances, and children with childlike faith who forgive with open eyes and soft hearts. I choose to keep my hair intact, and my voice low.

I’m not perfect though, and neither are you. But isn’t it wonderful that Jesus is? He is so we don’t have to be. Because we all mess up. Some more than others…but it is all equal in His eyes. Shame on us…but no reason any more to live in that shame.

A voice is raised to the child who keeps his song at the highest pitch possible…Jesus puts His hand on my shoulder and says, “Guide your son to sing for Me and not just to spite his sisters.” Grumbling is overheard when Daddy gets on all fours to play, rather than helping with dinner, Jesus pulls our faces close and whispers, “Dinner can wait…don’t miss out on the fun your family is having.”

And then eyes pass by the camera next to the computer screen, no photos have been taken and no words come by to share, I feel a loss, an emptiness. Outside forces have robbed me of joy…how dare they…and how dare I give them power.  I am determined to get it back… so I ask my Father for inspiration.

I look through old blog posts and search through files of old photos that I never edited. I push through, even when I don’t want to. I know that one day soon I will be able to set aside the darkness that threatens our joy. Instead of gray clouds of rain, we will be covered by a sunshine that can pierce even the hardest of hearts.

Yes…any heart is redeemable. Every relationship can be restored. Every joy can be given. I choose to stand.

“Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.”  Ephesians 6:13

I am blessed to have this man as the father of my kids. There is so much I appreciate about my husband, absolutely #1 on the list that he is an

amazing,
loving,
gentle father.
He’s slow to anger,
abundant in praise,
generous with his hugs.

He is not spiteful,
never attacking with his words,
and he is constantly looking for the Lord’s will for our family.

He loves to worship and bring glory to God and not himself. I’m happy to be able to praise on him a little bit because he never praises himself.

He is not a perfect man…but he’s perfect for us.

Happy Father’s Day Jeremy.

Tidbit #345 about Amy… I do not prefer to camp. I apologize to all the hard core campers out there (my in laws!) but its not for me. We were supposed to go camping at Lake Tahoe this week but the kids got the flu, and it was going to be like…70 million degrees below zero out there (no exaggeration!) and another thing I don’t do is cold weather. To be fair though, Jeremy, Lily & I were going to spend the night at his Aunts house and the older kids were going to camp…so I guess I wasn’t going to go camping at all.

But because my in laws love me so much, that was their compromise for me. They love me enough to not ask me to sleep outside in a tent with bugs, dirt and bugs. I know I can’t avoid camping for the rest of my life though, my husband loves it and so do my kids. I will have to take that plunge…and I will…because I love them and want to do what they love.

Compromise…that dreaded word that has slowly picked and pulled every square inch of my body. One leg stretched to the left, one arm so far out I think it might snap. Compromise…that as a baby 20 year old pulled me away from my family and drove me across the country to make a life among strangers. It pulled me again and again until the life I thought I was compromising…didn’t appeal to me anymore. I didn’t have to compromise anything…this is where I wanted to be.

Psalm 37:4 “Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.” He desires to give us what our hearts desire…and listen closely…if we hang on to every word He says…our desires will strangely and wonderfully match up with His. Suddenly there is no compromising…or else it doesn’t feel that way. I love Him. He loves me. He loves to Camp. I Love to Camp. Or something like that…. :) (Hey! Jesus camped all the time right?? )

This was a couple weeks ago when we met up with the Grandparents for a fun BBQ at their campsite out at Folsom Lake. It was the weekend of my birthday and Mom made me a carrot cake…oh my goodness I wish I would have taken a picture of that! I had it for breakfast the next day.

Apparently they had questions…