Pour it all out

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Good morning! Its Thursday friends…which means its ALMOST time for the work week to be over so know that rest is on its way.

The last few weeks have been tricky for me.

I decided at the end of last year that I was not going to live in fear of rejection in 2015. I wasn’t going to be afraid of being told no. I wasn’t going to be shy about the things I want for my business and my personal life and I was going to take the bull by the horns and just go for the things that I really wanted and felt like God was leading me to do. Saying YES to everything had lead to years of coming close to total burn out  so this was my year to say NO, to limit what I put my time into, and the year for me to decide what I really wanted and just invest, invest, invest in bringing the joys of my heart to paper and to people who wanted to listen. My heart has been more full and CONTENT in 2015 than in years before and I know that its because Ive been praying more and in Gods word more and just taking the time to invest in others.

For me, I know that I have the potential to REALLY help (by being that open handed help when its needed) people or REALLY hurt people (by being consumed with myself and ignoring opportunity to love on others in their time of need) and I desperately want to be known as someone who is caring and loving and giving and willing to sacrifice for others. But…that battle of wills between my head and  my heart can be hard to navigate and the best option for me to is to always choose Jesus…over me…other anyone else…I choose Jesus.

Yesterday I spent the morning with my beautiful friend, Amber, of Yellow Spark Studio and we talked about everything from our kids schools to how important strong marriages are for families. We laughed and drank coffee and worked side by side and it was perfect. I mentioned to Amber how deciding to just GO FOR IT this year with opportunities to speak and teach and expand my business has been really hard because I have had more doors close in my face and more, “so sorry, but no thanks” than I thought my heart would be able to bear. Ive had bitter and sad days and days where I just cling to scripture and KNOW that hearing God’s whisper to my heart is worth more than any opportunity man can give me.

PLEASE do not think that all of my days have been sad or bitter…nope. I have given myself enough grace to know that I need 2 days…2 full days of being upset about the “no”‘s and then its time to move on and dig my heels in and see how to make things happen even without it being the way I originally planned. It has all come back to what I said at the beginning…pouring out to others. I feel most full when my heart and hands and efforts are spent loving on others whether than be through my photography, through speaking publicly about my faith and business, through teaching photographers about how to run their businesses (rather than letting their businesses run them!), through being class mom for my sons kindergarten class, through subbing at my daughters preschool, through loving on college students who are at my house to eat all.the.time because I LOVE making big meals and sharing a table with friends, through projects with my husband that make him feel special and as important to my heart as he is, through being a good mom to my kids and other people kids too, and especially through taking a moment to sit and pray for the people around me. I have SO MUCH to be thankful for this year and I won’t/can’t let a few no’s slow me down. 🙂

All this to say, I’m not trying to sell you something. Im not trying to offer you a new product and claim it will revolutionize your way of doing business or balancing your personal and work lives. Im not trying to pitch myself as a portrait of what doing things perfectly looks like, but I AM pitching myself as a helper. Running a business can be messy and crazy and flexible and wonderful all in the same breath and I think were at a time in my industry where people need to hear that their dreams (even the teeniest tiniest ones) matter and that even people who have been doing businesses for 10, 15, 20, years still have days of struggle. Im digging in and every other week Im going to start posting about how you can dig in too…how we can all challenge ourselves for the sake of pouring into others. Im ready. Lets do this.