My Redeemer Lives

Several of you probably saw my Facebook status from yesterday asking for prayers. Let me tell you, firstly, how incredibly thankful I am to have friends who will intercede for me and cry out for me when I just can't.

That being said, I'm sure many of you are wondering what caused me to ask for this or what specifically you were praying for. I'd like to tell you how God came through for me and even in a terrible event that never should have happened, his timing was perfect.

Yesterday, I was headed to Brunswick, Ga (off the coast, about 2 hours from Statesboro) to shoot a wedding. I had had a pretty good morning, even left early and I decided I was going to stop to get something to drink before I got on the road. I stopped at a gas station by the interstate, grabbed my cash and my phone (thankfully) and ran inside to get my drink. I had a pleasant and very short conversation with the lady at the counter and was on my way. As I stepped out of the gas station, I heard a loud cracking sound. I wrote it off as construction and rounded the corner to my car, only to see that in the 2 minutes I was inside, someone had thrown a concrete block through my window and stolen my camera bag, which contained not only about $4000 worth of equipment, but also my debit card, my drivers license and all my money except for the $6 I had in my hand. I immediately started screaming. I saw a man and a car behind the building and I screamed at him and asked him if he had done it. He of course said no and drove away. (I later found out he had pulled in right behind me and left right after I asked him this question... you do the math.)

I must've made 5 phone calls in 5 minutes. 911, my parents, the photography company I work for, etc. God immediately went to work. The police came, my parents took care of everything insurance and bank wise and my co-workers came to the rescue and found me equipment to borrow. My brother came and we traded cars (he's the best and a hero of mine) and I was on my way within the hour. I made it on time and had a great day shooting and my parents told me to expect them in the morning to help me clean up the mess. They showed up this morning with a replacement car for me. I was floored. They had purchased it a week ago for a graduation gift for me AND had time to come down and give it to me and take my other car home to be fixed and sold because this is their spring break.

Yesterday started out and I was already ready to go home. But God came through and brought me so much peace- something that easily could have been taken from me knowing that someone had all my information and my stuff. But I'm not worried. He has allowed all of my family to approach this with so much forgiveness and grace and he has had his hand on this situation every step of the way. I have seen him through this. It would be so easy to dwell on a bad situation, but I just can't look at that one person who needs Jesus so much and ignore all the other wonderful people who helped me and held me up and prayed for me yesterday. I am so thankful. There is still a lot to deal with, but God as shown us he is sovereign.

When It's Hard to Breathe

I think we all have those moments where we start thinking too much. Lately, when this happens, anxiety takes over and I my brain goes into overdrive and I can't stop. To be completely honest, I've NEVER been like this. I've never had anxiety attacks before. I'm generally the kind of person who can roll with the punches and take life as it comes. It's been coming faster than I can deal with. Wave after wave after wave.

Something that I've been realizing is that life is unrelenting. Life will not slow down or stop or give me a break because I feel overwhelmed. But I also think that society tells us that it isn't okay for us to show our feelings or be vulnerable or feel like everything is too much.

Well, society, I've had about enough of your crap.

Listen, person who is reading my blog. Feel how you feel. Please do not let someone make your thoughts and feelings invalid. Do not listen to the person telling you to hold it together and keep going and color inside the lines 100% of the time. You'll go nuts.

Please remember that the Bible never says that God won't give us more than we can handle. That is such a lie. I can't handle basic human tasks about half of the time, so I think I'm living proof that that just isn't true. I was probably more than my sweet parents could handle on a daily basis. Combine that with two brothers and a dog and life and I am literally convinced that the rest of my family is somehow The Incredibles and I didn't get my invisible power like in the movie.

I digress.

Anyway. I wanted to make sure you knew that feeling overwhelmed is valid. I'm lucky enough to have people in my life that remind me of that and that live life with me daily and hold me up. Thank you, people in my life. You rock. Now i'm relaying the message to my blog people. They need to know.

So, blog people. I'm giving myself a little break. I'm going to skip a class. Yeah, I did have spring break last week and I am about to graduate from college and I have no plans. Thanks for bringing that up. But tonight, I was feeling trapped. And then I let Jesus speak to me through music and I felt my soul breathe a sigh of relief. So when it's hard to breathe, let your soul rest. My tendency is to run, but my mind doesn't shut off just because I'm hiding. Set your eyes on Jesus. It's so good for your soul. ALSO, remind me of this when I freak out. I'm only human, after all.

Love.

Swallow your Pride.

In light of my impending graduation, I've been reflecting on my past few years. Actually, quite a few years. Back to high school. You know, the good old days? I kid. I wouldn't go back to high school if you told me Channing Tatum would be in my algebra class.

Quite honestly, I was a jerk in high school. And middle school. I rode my high horse around like it was my job. If you had something worth judging, I judged. I gave out opinions and harsh criticisms left and right. I don't like that girl. I don't even think I liked being that girl. I think I thought it was my job. I think I felt that as a Christian girl, living amongst other Christian girls, it was my duty to correct them when they did something "wrong". The problem was that I didn't approach my sisters or brothers in Christ with love. I called them on their crap. Basically, I force fed my version of reality to them. There is no justifying being hateful. I cringe when I think about how awful I was to people. I've tried to explain it to myself. Luckily, for me, I had some wonderful and gracious friends who stuck around long enough to get to know my heart. I really cared about these people, I just wasn't very nice to them. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't mean all the time to everyone. That wasn't really what mattered, though. Being hurtful and mean to one person, one time is enough to warrant an apology. And I wasn't apologetic about anything. Until later.

I've felt it on my heart for a while that I needed to take the opportunity when I saw these people again to apologize to them. I haven't seen most people I went to high school with in 4 years. I don't know if I'll ever see them again. So I'm taking the opportunity now, even though my brain knows most of those people will never see this. I want to tell them that I'm sorry if I hurt them. That I care for them and I whole-heartedly hope that they'll forgive me for being so thoughtless and cold. I am so sorry. I hope that you believe that. As much as I want to justify my words and actions to you, I know that it doesn't matter to you WHY I was mean to you, it only matters that it happened. I know that because I was on the other side of it, probably at the same time I was dishing it out. That's mostly why it shocks me. How could i have been so cold when I knew what it felt like to be affected by hateful words? Somehow it didn't matter to me then. It matters now. You matter.

I want you to know that in the past 3 years, I've changed. I was still that mean girl my freshman year of college, and then something in me shifted. I couldn't tell you exactly when that happened. I don't even know if it really matters. What does matter is that I'm learning to be slow to speak, slow to anger and quick to listen. The Lord has continued to change my heart. There is something so beautiful and redemptive about the fact that Jesus will continue to love me and change my heart, no matter how nasty and confused I am. I am so thankful for his grace and his mercy and his goodness that got me thorough that mess.


I hope as I move on into the future I can become someone who is known for their kindness. I hope that people don't see someone mean and hurtful in me. I hope they can see my heart and my intentions.  My flesh WILL fail, but my God never will. 

66 days.

I graduate from college in 66 days. No matter how many times I say it, I don't think I will fully grasp the reality of that until I walk across the stage and receive a fake diploma. I've often said I've learned more in college about myself and about my walk with Jesus than I have about art, or business or the countless other subjects (that i'll never use again) that I was forced to take by the university system. But I certainly wasn't prepared for the stomach-churning, mind-boggling uncertainty that comes along with my last semester as a student. I now know that I took this journey for granted. There are so many things I would do over if I could, but in 66 short days, I will no longer be a student at Georgia Southern University. I will simply be a student of life and of the Lord.
That being said, I have been doing a lot of searching in the past 3 months or so. Soul searching, job searching, internet searching, etc. And I've found something in all this searching. Fear. No one prepares you for what is possibly one of the biggest transitions you'll have to make in a lifetime. There aren't instructions. There is no manual. There are no steps that are neatly outlined. No one will do it for you and quite frankly, there aren't many people who are ready and willing to help you. After all, its your transition. Not theirs.
I think what I've been searching for most intensely is security. I don't do well with the unseen, the unplanned or the unorganized. And quite frankly, thats what I'm walking into. So knowing this about myself, obviously I tried to handle it all on my own. Frantically searching for jobs and opportunities and money and ways to drum up business for my photography. Now, I'm certainly not saying I shouldn't be doing those things, but somewhere along the way I lost all faith that God could and would help me do all of this. I discarded every ounce of security he offered me because I didn't feel like working within his timing. Because if it doesn't seem perfect to me, it must not be. Right? Wrong.
So, I finally started praying about it. I was quickly reminded of a few things I need to be grasping a little bit tighter than I currently am.

1. No matter how hard I try to hide from the world, it isn't going anywhere. It has a purpose and I am going to have to deal. (Seriously, y'all. I was trying to hide under my pillow at this point. It wasn't pretty.)
2. The Lord graciously reminded me of Proverbs 31:25. "She is clothed with strength and dignity and laughs without fear of the future." 

At first, I was thinking "Um, yeah. Lord? Remember how the future is currently scaring me to death and I have LOTS of fear and I am not laughing? Yeah that's now." And then, he kept speaking. Which is great because the next part is what I really needed to hear. He told me to STOP saying I'm scared.  Because in Him, I can be strong. And in Him, I have dignity. And he holds my future. I also realized that my motives to getting a job and being a normal functioning human being have somewhere shifted from being about glorifying Him to being about keeping up with what is expected of me and what the world says I should be doing. If what the world says and what the Lord is saying align, thats awesome. But either way, He is going to make that clear in his timing.

I still don't know what comes next for me. Just because I have decided to trust the Lord more than my own abilities in this situation does not mean I magically will get 100 job offers tomorrow and I'll have more success than I'll know what to do with. It does mean that He will provide. Eventually. And His timing will be perfect. 

And for some reason, I felt like I was supposed to blog about this. Not just journal about it? So there's that. 

So, if you've read all of this, maybe you got something from it. I hope so. It's late and I don't know how coherent all of this is. Also, if you know of anyone who is hiring (preferably full-time), let me know! YOU could be an answer to prayer. (There is no shame in my plug for a job.)