Our precious kids! Harrison,5 Adélaide,4
It is more than a little cliché to write a blog post this week filled with deep thoughts of the past and cheesy inspirational quotes about the future. I am stuck in the middle of enjoying reading these blog posts while at the same time having a hard time differentiating between all of them. Many say the same thing. A lot of them saying something to the extent of “dream big and who cares if I fail” mostly pertaining to their business. I tried my best to not write an end of the year post, but I can’t seem to help myself. I have been mulling this over for the past couple weeks and I thought I’d share it with you.
Because my birthday happens to be the day before the last day of the year I tend to find myself doubly sentimental about another year gone by. It’s easy for me to mark my growth (or lack thereof). As I look back over the past year I am beyond content with the life God has given Ben and I. There are things that I 100% failed in, people who have let us down, dealing with difficult people in the industry, and much more. But as a believer in Christ, the only thing that matters is that while these things happened, we acted according to the Bible. I have great peace in my heart about that. In this very competitive industry, it is easy to get sucked into comparing ourselves to others, worry about how many weddings are on the books, and a myriad of other things. I am so thankful that we can trust in God’s sovereignty. We do our best to be excellent photographers and give brides&grooms great experiences, but in the end every wedding we book belongs to God.
In today’s American society we get sucked into believing that we constantly need to be striving to “move up the ladder” in whatever form that takes with your work. But I beg to differ. God has allowed me to “work from home” with our photography business so I can home school our kids. We had a great year. I will be thankful and content with that and pray that we can maintain that this coming year.
So what’s the whole point of this post? It is this: in my heart thankfulness and contentment is dreaming big.
1 Timothy 6:6 “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”
I am reminded of a hymn we often sing called “I Am Thine O, Lord”. Here are a couple verses of it that will be my song this year.
I am thine, O Lord, I have heard thy voice and it told thy love to me;
but I long to rise in the arms of faith and be closer drawn to thee.
Consecrate me now to thy service, Lord by the power of grace divine;
let my soul look up with a steadfast hope and my will be lost in thine.
There are depths of love that I cannot know till I cross the narrow sea;
there are heights of joy that I may not reach, till I rest in peace with thee.
