Joy in the Journey

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First, I want to thank everyone who commented yesterday. Your love and support make me feel so much better.

I woke up this morning feeling worse than yesterday. I’m sitting here waiting for the ibuprofen to kick in. I have stronger pain meds, but I’d rather not take them because we are going to make the drive to Rochester and I don’t want to be a zombie today. The Ibuprofen really helped yesterday. A couple of times, I felt downright normal…until I moved.

I mostly just took it easy yesterday. We had gotten birthday money from my mom and dad in April that we hadn’t spent yet, so we went to Target Tuesday night and I decided to spend mine on some movies I’d been wanting to see/own. I watched Juno by myself (not Tracy’s kind of movie), and one I already owned “13 going on 30″. Then Tracy and I went to Culvers to get some dinner and test my tolerance for riding in the car and ate it while watching “August Rush”. It was kind of nice to have a day to just veg. 

Well, I haven’t even packed, or brushed my teeth, so I must get going. I’ll post a photo of my arm bruise soon. It’s awfully colorful. 

God bless you and God bless America!

Filed under: life on July 4th, 2008 | 1 Comment »

Last night I had a pretty bad accident with my horse, Maggie Sue. It was bad, but it could have been worse.

I had decided to be adventurous and join the Buffalo Saddle Club Drill Team. They are a horseback drill team that competes every year at the Minnesota State Fair. A friend of mine is in it and I thought it would be a fun way to enjoy my horse and meet some local horse people. Because of Maggie Sue’s arthritis, she could do the actual drill, so I was considering the American Flag position, which entails only a couple of moves.

Last night was the first night for me and Maggie Sue. The team has been practicing for a couple of months, but this was my first chance to get out there and try it out. The first time through the drill, Maggie Sue was great! She was calm and dealt with it all very well. The second time through was a completely different story.

She decided she didn’t like this drill team thing where all the other horses were running around and she had to stand still. She got more and more antsy and I should have gotten off. I wanted to work with her, though, and had confidence I could get her through this. Then she hit her breaking point and she started to buck very hard. As I fell off, she lost her balance and fell on top of me. I think my helmet hit the gate on the way down. I landed on my left side. She got up right away.

I didn’t move for fear I had a neck injury, though I wasn’t feeling pain there. There happened to be an ER nurse on the team and she rushed to my side and with the help of other members, rolled me on my back. She held my head until the ambulance arrived. I was pretty scared and wanted to cry. They put me on a back board and took me to the hospital. Just as they were putting me in the ambulance, Tracy arrived. He got Maggie Sue in the trailer and took her back to the farm where I board her. He came to the hospital as soon as he could.

I got to the hospital and the ER was very busy. I had to lay on the board with a neck brace, in considerable pain in my low back, for about an hour. The pain got to be unbearable just about the time the Doctor came in to examine me. Once off the board, the pain lessened significantly.

He examined me and ordered x-rays. All the while, I was thinking I had broken my back again (I fell off a horse in ‘89 and broke my mid-back, and this felt a bit like that). We were relieved when the Dr came in a said “Good news, you have no broken bones!” Whew! What I do have is a sprained SI Joint. It’s the joint that connects your pelvis to your spine. I had SI Joint problems about 7 years ago, so I am familiar with this pain. It’s not fun.

I also have a lot of pain in the right side of my chest. There’s a place where the ribs connect to the sternum which has some tissue that gives. Well, because I landed on my side with a 900 pound animal on me, it gave a lot, probably tearing the tissue. Deep breathing and really any kind of movement hurts. 

I have a massive bruise on my right arm where I believe the saddle horn hit me and a sore spot on the inside of my left leg where I believe the cantle of the saddle hit me. I have a bump on my head too, and aches and pains almost everywhere else.

I am thankful I wore a helmet, or I could have had serious head injuries. 

I do believe it is a miracle that I wasn’t hurt worse. I have to say, I had a lot of reservations about going to this practice because Maggie Sue hasn’t been in a lot of really stimulated environments, but I didn’t want to live out of a place of fear. So on the way there, I told the Lord, “well, even if I fall, I know you’ll take care of me.” I believe He answered that prayer and showed Himself faithful.

As for what comes next with Maggie Sue, I’m trying not to think much about it. My first thought was that I would never trust her again and to get sell her. But I have owned her for 14 years and this is my first fall. Had I been wise, I would have gotten off when she first started to get freaked out. I need to know my limits and hers and not be overconfident and err on the side of caution.

Please pray for a quick recovery for me. I had a lot of trouble sleeping last night and it hurts to walk or stay in one place for too long (typing isn’t painful, though - ha ha!). Thankfully, I have no photo shoots coming up in the next couple of days. I am not sure about next week, but as I feel right now, desk work is about all I can handle. 

We’re hopefully heading to Rochester, MN tomorrow to spend the holiday with my mom and dad and my sister’s family. I hope you have a relaxing and enjoyable weekend!

Filed under: jesus, life, prayer request on July 3rd, 2008 | 10 Comments »

All I wanted for Christmas last year was a GPS. I am directionally challenged and get lost almost every time I try to find a client’s home or place of business. I would always call Tracy or my mom to navigate me to my destination.

Tracy go me this one:

This little device has a voice, so we had to give her a name. We landed on Jean. The nice thing about the name is if we ever change the voice to a male voice, we won’t have to change its name. 

As I was driving to a photo session last night, following Jean’s instructions, I felt a smile hit my face and I was filled with thankfulness for Jean. She has taken some of my stress away by being a great navigator, and even telling me what time I will arrive. At first I had a little trouble trusting her directions, but I have since found she is almost always right and it’s a good idea to believe her.

Filed under: life on June 27th, 2008 | 2 Comments »

We have a great visitor this week - Bethany Anderson!

She was one of my photography students at The Daniel Academy in Kansas City. We really clicked and made plans for her to visit and “intern” with me this summer for a week. She arrived Wednesday. Her dad Dale (our program director for “The Commission”) drove her up and drove back the same day. It so happened that we were already going to be south of the Twin Cities to attend my sister’s book party (she has a new book - more about that in another blog entry!), so we picked her up in Northfield and she came to the party with us!

Thursday, Bethany did a couple of office projects that have been dwelling in the back of my mind. She is really smart, and did them well with very little direction. I’m so happy to have them done! In the evening, I had a great equine photo shoot on a really cute farm in Norwood Young America. She was a terrific help to me and the shoot went about as smooth as a shoot can go.

Today, she slept in while I went to town on a project I HAD to get done. After lunch we ran errands, and tonight we’re going out to practice photography in my pretty little home town - Buffalo! Why the practice? Because tomorrow, we are going to assist my friend Verna at a wedding! I will be second shooting and Bethany will be the assistant - holding a reflector, holding lights, running for things we forgot AND taking pictures! It should be SO FUN!

Monday, I have a commercial shoot early in the morning and Bethany will assist me for that too. I love that she’ll be able to experience so many different types of photo shoots while she’s here!

Filed under: life on June 20th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

The past few months have felt chaotic. Much of that feeling came from having to work out of temporary office spaces while Tracy had time to replaced the flooring and move things back in. This meant that stuff was everywhere on our two lower levels. We have found it hard to relax when the house is an uncleanable mess.

Also, Tracy has been trying to get our taxes done and found a glitch that’s been going on for years in QuickBooks, and we didn’t have all the paperwork to fix it.

In addition, I’ve been working to revamp my photography web site to add weddings and a few other features that I feel are critical to have out there before I do much advertising of my services.

On top of it all, one of my most important lenses was at the shop for repair, preventing me from really doing much equine photography.

Life has felt on hold.

Well, the good news is, it’s coming together now.

Tracy finished the floor in my office (he’s my hero!) and we moved me back in. He’s been in his for a few weeks because he was able re-use his carpet, but he couldn’t really get things back to normal until my office was done because a lot of my stuff was in his office.

The paperwork Tracy needs to finish the taxes came in the mail Friday, so he should be able to put the tax thing to bed this week.

My lens arrived Friday (though I have two other, less critical lenses, to send in).

My web site is about 85% complete. I’m hoping to have it done tomorrow!

I have a good feeling about all of this. Like we’re going to be able to hit the “play” button and life and business can start to move forward again.

Praise God!!!

Filed under: life on June 15th, 2008 | 3 Comments »

Filed under: the journey on June 10th, 2008 | No Comments »

I arrived home today from my trip to DC to serve TheCall and the Justice House of Prayer (JHOP) as an intercessor and a photographer. If you’ve read past entries, you will know that I had some reservations about the trip, but went with what I felt God was saying, and that was: GO!

I’m sure it will take days, weeks, months, maybe more to really sort out the impact of the trip on my life. I am processing all that I saw, heard, experienced and felt. These things were on many levels from relationships, to ministry, to activism and government. My heart is swirling and I think I’ll need several blog entries to unpack everything.

I took about 1500 photographs. Some were portraits, but many were of life at the “big house”, the JHOP and the Supreme Court Steps. I’m very behind in processing photographs at this point, so you might not see photos for awhile, but when I do post them, I’ll share the link here.

Probably the part that had the most basic level impact on me was the reason JHOP exists and why people are going there - to pray for mercy for our nation and to stand for justice and the ending of abortion. I’ve never been very vocal about my beliefs about the abortion issue and I think I didn’t even have a strong personal conviction about it. I knew that I believed that it was wrong, but I didn’t do much about it. In the time I spent there, God touched my heart for this issue and it is more personal to me now and I have a greater passion to stand for life. Every afternoon, our group would stand in front of the Supreme Court with tape on our mouths with the word “LIFE” written on it and we would pray. It is a “Silent Siege” and it goes on 24-7 (I think).

I only had the opportunity to do one LIFE stand because I usually kept the fire burning in the prayer room by doing a devotional worship time. I now wish I could have done at least one more. Tracy and I are planning to go back to D.C. in August for TheCall, and I’m hoping we can do a few stands together.

I felt a little bit like a hippie chick this week - living in a house with around 30 other people and being and activist. Ha ha!

Filed under: life on June 9th, 2008 | No Comments »

Last Saturday, I spent pretty much the whole day organizing closets and cupboards. We acquired some “stuff” from Nick and Amy when they moved to India, and in order to integrate it with our “stuff”, cleaning and organization was very needed.

I started in the Laundry room, and then moved to the hall closet. They left us these nice baskets I used to organize thing like carpet cleaning products, light bulbs and miscellaneous stuff. Note that there is actually empty space on the shelf? I’m sure that won’t last long…

Next up was the cupboard under our kitchen counter. It’s one of those that you open just enough to get out what you want to get out, the close and try to forget how messy it is! In the combining of “stuff” we ended up with four boxes of tin foil, four boxes of cling wrap, and lots of sandwich bags.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve led a few workshops and worship team rehearsals, and managed to acquire a rather absurd amount of plasticware. Anyone want to go on a picnic?

One thing that I should have taken a photo of, was the equally absurd amount of plastic grocery bags that were stuffed into this cupboard. It had to be close to 100! So when we went shopping at Cub Sunday night, we saw these reusable bags 10 for $10. We’ve talked about doing this for awhile, but never quite got to the point of buying some, but after wading through all those plastic bags, I was totally ready to do this. What I love about them is they are really easy to carry because of the handles and they actually hold more than even paper grocery bags. We only used three that night for half a cart’s worth of groceries. The trick is going to be remembering to bring them. I think we’ll leave some in the car.

Filed under: life on June 3rd, 2008 | 3 Comments »

God has been teaching me some interesting things lately. One is particularly life-altering, and I never knew it was even a problem. Yay God for not leaving me in my sin forever!

Apparently, I have had a control problem. I’m going to write in faith of it as having been a past problem, but know that I have a road ahead of me for walking this out.

I am a very forward thinker. So much so, that I have difficulty remembering past details, because I am so focused on the future. I think this is part of my calling as a forerunner. I love to pioneer, I love to be on the cutting edge, I love trying new things. But there’s a dark side to this “gift” as well, and that is over-planning, which is really an issue of control. When I have something coming up, I think about it, envision it, and plan for it. The interesting thing is, I’m pretty flexible in the way things happen when they happen, but I still have plan A, B, C, D…etc. all in my head long before I get there. And it’s not just with events, it can be solving a problem, or dealing with a relationship. I am highly analytical, and this all boils down to thinking everything to death. Are you following me?

This morning in house church, I heard a statement that summed up the issue: “We like to try to control things in the future in order to insulate ourselves from potential pain.” That struck my heart like an arrow. That’s it, that’s what I’ve been doing.

In the past couple of weeks, there have been numerous instances where I have “let go, and let God”. It’s such a cliché phrase, but it’s true. I have to rewind just a little further and share that before this happened, God had been increasing our faith in several areas of our life and we’ve been seeing answers to prayer come in supernatural ways, which increases our faith more.

Increasing my faith means I’m learning to trust God. Learning to trust God means not having to be in control of everything all the time. It means trusting that even if that leads to pain, the pain is an opportunity to fellowship with Christ in His sufferings. This is a place of real surrender.

I wish I could spout out all the great personal examples, but I can’t even remember them (see, I am bad with past details!)! I just know that I’m learning to see Jesus as the hero that comes in the 11th hour and saves the day and that it is freeing my heart in a way I have never known freedom.

In looking forward to this week, I am leaving to Washington D.C. to serve The Call and the Justice House of Prayer. When I booked my flights, I was certain I was doing what God had called me to do, but in the last week, my excitement has waned and I honestly have no idea why I’m going.

I was sharing this with a friend who knows my journey with trust right now and she told me that this is a great place to be with it! After talking with her, I realized that this is all by design. I have no expectations and because I haven’t envisioned, and planned, and scheduled it all out, so I am able to go with the flow of the Spirit and just see what God has for me there. I am seriously now more excited than I was when I booked my flight! I am excited to see what God does in, though, and to me as I take this step of faith and just let Him lead me on this trip. I’m taking a vacation with God, how cool is that?

Filed under: life, the journey on June 1st, 2008 | No Comments »

…I guess I won’t be checking e-mail at stoplights anymore.

http://www.startribune.com/local/north/19416769.html

Filed under: life on May 31st, 2008 | 3 Comments »