Can I get personal with you all? Well, I am going to.
I started this year off believing grander things were going to take place. 2017 was not an easy year, honestly I cannot remember the last time that the whole year was an easy year for me. 2018 though, it kicked off the most challenging season that we have gone through. In the midst of the most challenging parts God showed me how he wanted me to write about what it was that I was walking through. He even showed me the picture of a kitchen with an island and said "that is your kitchen and that is your book that you will write" . The title that I was given was "Journey to my kitchen" and journey it has been. I wanted to take a moment to share chapters with you all. This will be a process. I am in a process.
Last year I felt like my photography business was booming. I was hired to shoot a wedding, collaborated with some amazing businesses to create some amazing photographs. with new clients right and left, I honestly felt like I was on the up. Then it all disappeared just as fast as it came. No one prepares you for what to do when wells in your life run dry. Instead they tell you do buckle down and fight harder. What if sometimes you are supposed to put your swords down and walk away? I am a dreamer. I am someone that chases, pursues, imagines the impossible, creates. When something doesn't work out or life goes another direction it feels like I failed in someway.
I am in the midst of a season where all my comforts of life have been stripped. Everything outside of Jesus, my kids and my husband that I have known has been stripped away this year. Places that were once fertile ground, and familiar have been taken. I have had to say goodbye to friends, homes, and a business.
IT. HAS. SUCKED.
I want my photography business to succeed, but I cannot force people to hire me. I wanted to stay in our home, but I cannot control that it was taken from us. I wanted to keep friendships, but staying around when abuse is occurring is toxic to your very soul.
Rejection after rejection.
There is a saying in the church community "If this doesn't work out it just means that the Lord has something better for you." Friends, I used to say this and believe this. Now, now I am convinced this is pure christian rhetoric. God doesn't have something BETTER for me. He has something DIFFERENT for me and it may or may not be amazing in my eyes. But it is what he has for me. And what God has for me is perfect for me in that season because he knows that I am the one he designed for whatever it is. But saying that God has something better sets people up for disappointment. I am living in the different right now.
In this season, I have experienced every emotion. Loneliness, desperation, and anger. I have also experienced happiness so great that it fills more than just that moment.
And it's Okay.
Friends, when wells in your life run dry IT'S OKAY. There is something else out there. Part of living life is knowing when it's okay to walk away. Knowing that the friendship that is not longer producing life is okay to walk away from. You are not a failure, quite the opposite. When no matter what you do the business that was once booming is now no longer sustaining- IT'S OKAY. This doesn't mean you're failure, it means that you're on too something else. Life is that way. Starting over is challenging, but it is also a gift.
I am learning the art of walking away comes hand in hand with learning bravery. Bravery is not the opposite of fear, but rather doing something afraid. Bravery is telling your kids that it will be ok when you are otherwise homeless. Bravery is being bold even though you are shaking inside. Bravery is going for something even-though you have been rejected many times before. A lot of brave people look like foolish people in the very moment that they are their bravest.
So, cheers to a really difficult season of life that I am right in the middle of. A season that bravery, grace and faith are being squeezed out... And hopefully a book too.