life & change

the past few days I've been trying to go through all of my pictures from the beginning of the summer to make sure I document and record all the happenings of life. I started this blog as just that - a way to journal what we were doing "way out here" when we moved in 2008 - so people could feel connected with us and I could keep an account of all of our happenings. Since then, this blog has been many more things. Blog design tips, the start of my photography career (oh gosh, don't look back now!), and more recently - adoption.

The coolest stories have come from this silly blog. Friends of mine telling our story to their friends and then inevitably they send them here. to the blog. I started to wonder: when they come here, do they get an idea about adoption? are the encouraged? challenged? if they are seeking advice and community - is that found here? now while I considered for a minute just stopping the blog thing, last Monday God really started flooding my mind with ideas and inspirations for this blog. All of a sudden I saw it as something different - a place to encourage, to challenge, to be REAL, to be transparent. Because life isn't all trips to Disney World. That's fun and that's vacation but that's not my day to day life. my day to day life is full of struggle, and grace, and battle - just like yours. In my real life, I hope to really strive to be transparent - to be real - and I've learned that it's through that transparency that we become close with people. We really start to walk and do life with the people we open up to.

I've said all along with this whole adoption thing I have been an open book. I want to answer questions, I want to tell our story better, I want to encourage other families who are considering it, I would to encourage other families in the way they raise support - none of this is because I've got it figured out but it's all because that's what I'm walking through right now. I've always been the type of person that once I find something really good I tell EVERYONE. Just this week, that was jewelry and then a new perspective I found on my prayer life. And not that I'm so important that you should listen to me, but I know for me when I'm looking for answers or for someone else to say "yeah, I'm there too" I really do search for it, for those people. and I feel like God has given me this blog as a outlet to do that. I don't want this to be about me, but all about Him. the cry of my heart is to make HIM FAMOUS and to bring HIM glory. So...I don't really know what that looks like yet on the blog. I just wanted to warn you that it's not all going to be Disney world & sno cones anymore. Not because I want to be all "preachy" but because I want to be real - I want my life to be an open book, and I want to believe that God can use me.

Things are looking up :)

photos by: Bend the Light

If you are new here: look at the left top corner of the blog called "new here" and read what the heck we are talking about :)