futile efforts

Despondency.

Have you ever been absolutely exhausted without any real reason to be?
You haven't been training for a half marathon or working from sunrise to sundown. You don't have endless extra circulars or outstanding overbearing demands.

In fact, the only real demand you have is a rather stocky, yet strapping, Pitt bull who's middle name is Mischief. (it's really Hamilton, but it might as well should be...)

In the past few months, I have become rather comfortable, comatose and the worst of all... complacent.
- not complacent by boasting in my self- but rather complacent in realizing that I have settled. 


You women who are so complacent, rise up and listen to me; Tremble, you complacent women; shudder, you daughters who feel secure! hear what I have to say: Isaiah 32: 8-11


I think I finally figured it out- why things have been so stagnant. I will try to sum it up very quickly... 

....Because I have allowed things to be so...

When I graduated college, I was certain that I was going to be a wedding and life style photographer. I had worked incredibly hard at finishing my second major during my senior year of college to ensure that I could start right after school. I was very excited and seemed to have the world at my feet. 


-And then I went to Haiti...

I have to say that Haiti altered my life in a way that nothing else could have ever. It changed the way I literally see the world, It changed things I cared about- It changed everything. I came home and struggled immensely with trying to decide if photography was something I could still pursue. I had captured these images of people in such desperation...to come home simply to go back to shooting something that, now, no longer seemed to hold the same value, as what I just photographed in Haiti just didn't seem possible. Everything I had believed in as far as my shooting abilities, the love for what I did and why I did it was challenged.


And I've spent the past 6 months restructuring my framework in trying to understand where career and passion intersected, If they even would at all...


I didn't want to simply do something because I was good at it. I wanted to believe in every single thing that I photographed. I wanted everything I did to mean something to me.  To mean something to someone else. I wanted those who looked at what I shot to care intensely about it. I wanted my work to generate change.

So I simply stopped.... and waited.

I've been waiting now for quite some time. What I realized in this process was that :

discernment does not = ceasing. 

All this time I have been affirmed over and over again that I was supposed to being doing this... but I was looking for a different answer... so it fell on deaf ears.

In believing I was growing, waiting for the "right" opportunity... I actually became stagnant. And did nothing to allow the opportunity to be presented.

And I let my heart & motivation become blinded by many distractions strategically, I feel, placed before me by the enemy.

I found myself ridden with envy. The sense of others moving forward, and me feeling stationary. All the while... I was the very culprit of my own immobility. I was the victim of my own foolishness.

I had shut out the spirit.
I had silenced affirmation.
I had passed up chances.
And I had stayed simple...

I WAS MADE FOR GREATNESS. BECAUSE THE LORD OF HEAVEN, HAS SAID SO.

Through God, I am completely able.

Isaiah 49:1-3:
"The moment I entered the world, He named me.
He gave me speech that would cut and penetrate.
He kept His hand on me to protect me.
He made me His straight arrow
& Hid me in His quiver.
He said to me,  "You're my dear servant, through whom I will shine."

Tonight I got a swift kick to my face. When I believe, that the Lord Himself spoke directly to me through a trusted advocate. - Although many people have tried before, (I know, I am sorry for not listening)- He finally got through to me, tonight. I was challenged tremendously by a respectable woman of God, that I had become boring. That I was burning out before I even had begun. That I had too much to let lie. And that I needed to be photographing. No matter what.

He spoke loud and clear. & I absolutely positively, finally, heard Him.

I know that right now, I am certainly not where I want to be. Where I long to be... but I know that He has equipped me. That I am completely able as any to do what He has created me to do. That I don't need to make any more excuses. That I simply must do. And do, I will.

"When the time is ripe, I answer you.
when the victory's due, I help you.
I form you & use you
to reconnect the people with me.
To put the land in order
to resettle families on the ruined properties.
Then everyone will know that I, God,
have saved you.- I, the Mighty One of Jacob."
Isaiah 49: 8-12, 26. 

I am about to embark on a one month journey, in which I will be piecing together a photo series that I feel may be my strongest work to date. The series is completely inspired by the collaborative concept of my best friend & myself. I feel that the body of work will be thought provoking, challenging and above all else, empowering. What an amazing boost of encouragement to begin the next 29 days of great anticipation. I'm back baby!

I am thankful for the person's obedience to speak truth into my life. I know many other's have tried... but again, God's timing is perfect..... loud. & clear.

"Set a fire down in my soul... that I can't contain... and I can't control... "