the slow drip of waiting

In this day and age, most of us have either known someone or been in this spot ourselves... waiting for biopsy results. And it's a rotten place to be. According to THIS STUDY published in March, waiting can be just as stressful as receiving a poor diagnosis.

How about the stress of a pending layoff? Or waiting to hear from a loved one serving overseas? What about someone in the midst of the adoption process, waiting for months to be united with their child? Torture. Pure torture.

Waiting requires a great deal of patience - easy to say, not so easy to display. Here's what Dictionary.com has to say about it:

Patience, endurance, fortitude, and stoicism imply qualities of calmness, stability, and persistent courage in trying circumstances. Patience may denote calm, self-possessed, and unrepining bearing of pain, misfortune, annoyance, or delay; or painstaking and untiring industry or (less often) application in the doing of something: to bear afflictions with patience.

It also describes patience as the quality of being patient, as the bearing of provocation, annoyance, misfortune, or pain, without complaint, loss of temper, irritation, or the like.

I don't know about you, but patience goes against my very nature. Without God to lean on, I would fall very short in trying circumstances - letting worry, doubt, and fear consume me. Instead, His Word must become my anchor in the storm:

I watch in hope for the Lord, I wait for God my Savior; my God will hear me. Micah 7:7

I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. Psalm 40:1

In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. Psalm 5:3

I wait for you, O Lord; you will answer, O Lord my God. Psalm 38:15

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you, Lord. Isaiah 26:3

We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. Romans 5:2-4

The Lord is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid?... For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his tabernacle and set me high upon a rock... I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. Psalm 27: 1, 5, 13-14

Just waiting for this storm to pass.

it's cold & rainy

Perfect for eating. In case you hadn't yet noticed, there's a new button on my blog (scroll down and you'll see it on the right). It'll bring you to all sorts of yummy recipes.

Photo Challenge Themes for November

Here are the weekly themes for November:

November 1-7, 2009: Magical Places (thanks malansjan for the idea!)
November 8-14, 2009: Shiny
November 15-21, 2009: Little Known Facts About Me
November 22-28, 2009: Daily Gratitude

If you'd like to join our Flickr group for ideas and inspiration, just let me know!

Are You There God? It's Me, Tina...

I was an avid reader as a young girl, my favorite books being The Secret Garden, Flowers in the Attic, Clan of the Cave Bear, Watership Down, and countless others. Of course, Judy Blume made a huge impression as well.

Interestingly enough, it was her book that made me start thinking of God as someone I could talk to - even if He did seem so very far away. I pictured Him sorta "up there" watching from some heavenly throne, similar to the way I watched television.

I never knew what it meant to know Him... that is, until several years ago. My mom was talking about God a lot at the time. She'd been watching some Bible teacher on television so I decided to secretly watch the show myself to see what Mom had gotten herself into. Much to my surprise, I found myself secretly enjoying it!

Who would have thought the Bible could be so relevant to everyday life? I'd always thought of it as some outdated sacred resource, I had no clue it actually contained helpful information regarding relationships and dealing with stress and truly enjoying life.

Go figure.

And then one day that Bible teacher talked about what it meant to have a relationship with the Lord. A real one, not the far-off kind. I felt a yearning so strong that in the darkness of my livingroom, I prayed. A change took place in me that day and my life has never been the same.

So instead of God being that far-off guy up in the sky, His presence surrounds me. He's not just watching, He is involved... interacting, directing, comforting. I notice things in response to prayer - details I might have dismissed in the past as mere coincidence. I write these things down and have been for a number of years.

It's amazing, I tell you. There is just no stinkin' way it's coincidence.

"beautiful... in a manly, handsome sort of way" | MN Family Portrait Session

I found myself repeating that phrase OFTEN during our session. Shannon, of course, took no offense to the beautiful reference. Her men, on the other hand, might not have felt quite the same way.

Seriously though, we're talking one BEAUTIFUL family... inside and out. Here's a peek at our session together:

Did I happen to mention they were also FUN?

It was an honor photographing your family; I was every bit aware of the two smiles looking down on us from heaven.

squirrel hunting & cookie baking | MN Family Portrait Session

I'm sure you had no clue a photography session could be this exciting ;-) Our morning (Saturday) began with a squirrel hunt:

(Gotta love the little guy in the middle.) And ended with some cookie baking:

Of course there were all sorts of moments to capture in between:

Thanks for allowing me to capture your beautiful family!

balancing act

Just thought I'd better post since I haven't done so since TUESDAY. The hubby is sick and I've been working my tail off. (Okay, not all work - I did have a day of play with my mom and grandmas yesterday; I'm hoping to blog about that later.) It seems everyone is sick, doesn't it? I had to laugh because Grandma Deutsch sent me home with three bottles of antibacterial hand sanitizer yesterday - three GINORMOUS bottles.

There's just so much going on right now. I'm just focusing on the step in front of me otherwise I feel overwhelmed. I have only one verse on my mind and that is Matthew 6:34:

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. (MSG)

It brings me a lot of peace to focus only on the moment. (It also saves a lot of energy.) Perhaps this verse will bring one of you a little peace tonight as well.

plaaaaaaay tiiiiiiime | MN Family Portrait Session

I've come to realize there is really no other way to shoot a family session. Get the kids revved up, send them off with a little sugar, and pray they'll crash on the ride home.

Forgive me, Mom and Dad... but it is SO WORTH the cute shots! Here are a few more from our windy session near the railroad tracks:

And the love that fuels this family:

I hope you had as much fun as I did. See you soon! (BTW, you can visit Micaela's blog HERE.)

BFFs | Minnesota Teen Portrait Session

What could be better than having a lovely model to photograph? Having TWO lovely models to photograph! You might remember Cassidy as a previous senior model for my website (and coffee w/sharon's daughter), well she and her BFF (Nicole) were looking for some fun images that would capture their friendship. They've been friends since FOURTH GRADE and have undoubtedly been through a lot together.

We spent the afternoon looking for cool locations to mess around with. The girls were so much fun, very brave, and made for a couple of awesome models.

And last but not least, the shot they suffered through so I could play with the light:

They even had an audience for these ;-) Thank you again for being so willing to try my ideas. I'll keep you posted on the rest of the images!