by Shelly | Mar 21, 2014 | personal, special project |
NOTE: My blog has traditionally been all business, but for at least a little while it is going to become intensely personal. During Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter, I am participating in a photo challenge. The way it works is that the organizers have given us a list of words, and every day we are supposed to take and share a picture based upon that word. Because I hardly ever do things the easy way, I am also attempting to write a devotional that goes with these pictures. I have not been very consistent, due to some craziness that we call LIFE , but with God’s help I will continue to write a few as I can. Last year I participated in a similar challenge. This link will take you to my 2013 Lenten challenge. This years challenge is entirely blog-based. This year the challenge is sponsored by Catholic Sistas.
Please pray for me and/ or bear with me, and if this isn’t your cup of tea, just keep on checking for portrait posts in between these challenges — or check back in after Easter.
SOLITUDE
I’ve started three or four times to write a devotional for the topic of SOLITUDE, and every time I just rehash all the same old things about being still and quiet and waiting for God to speak.
BLEAH….
I want a new and exciting solitude experience to share with the half dozen or so people who actually read these Lenten challenges –WHEN I even manage to get them written.
The writer of Ecclesiastes tells us that there is nothing new under the sun, and I’m starting to think that my efforts in this challenge are all in vain. Maybe I am the one who should take a little time to be alone with God rather than to try and write about it.
God hasn’t given me anything new or particularly inspiring to write. But then, I haven’t TAKEN THE TIME to be still and listen to what He has to say. No wonder my brain is mushy.
Jesus often went off to a quiet place to pray, and I think that’s just one of many ways that he set a good example for us to follow.
He didn’t have the constant dinging, beeping, and vibrating vying for His attention that we’ve all become accustomed to with our smart phones and other techie devices, but he had crowds constantly pushing up against him clamoring just to touch His robe so that they could be healed. And he was so consumed with COMPASSION that he wanted to be available for every single one of them. It must have been exhausting for him. Still, he would step away from the crowds into a quiet cove of a garden or He would climb into a fishing boat and pushout onto the water for some peace and quiet.
For us, finding a quiet place to open our hearts and pray can be as simple – or as gut-wrenching—as turning off the smart phone.
Try it. It’s harder than it sounds … at first. Then we realize that texts, e-mails, phone calls can wait.
I’ve had a very busy chaotic past couple of weeks and the coming week doesn’t look much calmer, but I think that Sunday after we get home from church I will actually be able to go out into my backyard – just me and my little shovel, with a few tomato plants, and maybe a couple of flats of annuals.
That’s where God and I have our best conversations. He meets me where I am, but I have to clear the garbage out of my own head in order to keep from running right past Him.
So today, I pray that each of us has a few moments of quiet peaceful SOLITUDE so that we can hear and experience the very specific and personal blessings that he is holding in his hand to pour out onto our heads.
Be still and know that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth. – Psalm 46:10
by Shelly | Mar 11, 2014 | personal, special project |
NOTE: My blog has traditionally been all business, but for at least a little while it is going to become intensely personal. During Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter, I am participating in a photo challenge. The way it works is that the organizers have given us a list of words, and every day we are supposed to take and share a picture based upon that word. Because I hardly ever do things the easy way, I am also attempting to write a devotional that goes with these pictures. I will probably take the weekends off and will also quite likely miss a few days. Hopefully not too many. Last year I participated in a similar challenge. This link will take you to my 2013 Lenten challenge. This years challenge is entirely blog-based. This year the challenge is sponsored by Catholic Sistas.
Please pray for me and/ or bear with me, and if this isn’t your cup of tea, just keep on checking for portrait posts in between these challenges — or check back in after Easter.
REFLECTION
Maybe I’m weird, but I think it’s fun to look at reflections in warped shiny things. Things like spoons and bathtub faucets and magnifying mirrors. Well…. The older I get, maybe not so much the magnifying mirrors (SCARY), but you get the idea.
On one side of a spoon, your cheeks and nose get all huge and round while your chin and forehead disappear, and on the other side of the spoon your whole face puckers and turns upside down.
Go ahead
get a spoon.
I’ll be here all week.
What if we didn’t have decent mirrors, but all we had was spoons? We wouldn’t have a clue what we really looked like. Hmmmph. We wouldn’t even be too sure which end was up.
Back in the days that the books of our Bible were being written, they didn’t have good mirrors, just polished pieces of whatever metal was common in those days. Perhaps the best reflection a person would ever see of himself/herself was in very still clear water – until a fish swam by and messed up the whole thing.
In Paul’s letter to the Corinthians he tries to explain that we have no clue how great God’s glory really is and what He has in store for us when we draw near to Him because we are looking at God through a spotty and warped piece of glass.
—
When I was a baby girl, my daddy who also happened to be my first photography instructor, took beautiful photographs of me. ZILLIONS of them. He would shoot a whole roll of film and run down the hill to my grandparents’ house where he had a darkroom, and he would develop them all. You should SEE my baby book! It’s embarrassing . . . but not in a bad way. Oh my it’s amazing!
Before too long, though, I entered my rebellious years where I thought everything that was connected with my parents was stupid. It got harder and harder for Dad to get decent photographs of me – and when he did, I didn’t even want to see them or believe that they were any good.
That’s a shame because nobody else cared enough to portray me like he did.
Over time, the only images I ever saw of myself were those taken by people who either lacked the skills or who didn’t care about the end result. Some of these people, I think, even got a charge out of embarrassing me. It wasn’t long before I started to see myself as an UGLY… scraggly . . .zit-faced . . . snaggletoothed . . . frizzy-haired . . . bow-legged . . . UNDESIREABLE — oh, and did I say UGLY girl. Math-skills and music talent eluded me too, do I felt fairly worthless.
YUK … who could EVER love a girl like THAT?
When we turn our back on God, our Father, we also turn our back on the beauty and blessings that He has in store for us.
Not too long ago I had a chance to swap headshots with a talented local photographer who is also a friend. Jayna Balcer took the time to really see ME. And yes . . . I still have big teeth, no chin,bow-legs, and frizzy hair — but she STILL made me look pretty dang good. And that picture, the little one in the middle DOES look like ME!
WHOAH!
What a shame that I only saw myself through a distorted lens of sinful rebellion for so long.
Slowly . . . oh so slowly, I am learning to feel comfortable in my own skin and to see God’s glory everywhere I look.
and because I am beginning to see Him, I am beginning — only just beginning to shine — spiritually. Forget the physical, it’s all getting wrinkled and droopy by now anyway.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 1 Corinthians 13:12 NIV
Dear Lord, please help me TAKE THE TIME to REFLECT your love and glory through my warped soul so that eveyone I touch in a day can see a glimmer of YOU. If I must be warped, at least let me shine brightly. Amen.
by Shelly | Mar 7, 2014 | personal, special project |
NOTE: My blog has traditionally been all business, but for at least a little while it is going to become intensely personal. During Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter, I am participating in a photo challenge. The way it works is that the organizers have given us a list of words, and every day we are supposed to take and share a picture based upon that word. Because I hardly ever do things the easy way, I am also attempting to write a devotional that goes with these pictures. I will probably take the weekends off and will also quite likely miss a few days. Hopefully not too many. Last year I participated in a similar challenge. This link will take you to my 2013 Lenten challenge. This years challenge is entirely blog-based. This year the challenge is sponsored by Catholic Sistas.
Please pray for me and/ or bear with me, and if this isn’t your cup of tea, just keep on checking for portrait posts in between these challenges — or check back in after Easter.
TEST
Testing my willpower today….. There’s a box of Girl Scout Cookies sitting on my desk right now, and chances are slim that it will still be unopened at the end of the day. I know better than to even have them in here because once I pull on that strip that says “OPEN HERE,” all bets are off.
These are the best-selling classic thin mints — Yummmm-O, but HEAVEN HELP US if I had a box of those chewy chocolaty coconutty morsels of palatal bliss called Caramel Delights. Then, all bets would be off!
This morning I did my time at the gym. Do I really want to throw that sweating and lifting out the window for a COOKIE (or five or more)? I know how yummy they will taste, but I’d rather not wear them as Bingo Wings when sleeveless weather gets here in a few weeks.
The advertising writer who came up with the phrase, “Betcha can’t eat just one,” was a GENIUS. Once I rip open the box to nibble on just one cookie, we might as well write off the entire sleeve. That’s just how I roll. I know it up front.
Fortunately, one box of cookies alone will not throw me or anyone over into another level on the obesity charts, but it could be a start in that direction. In any case, it is not a wise decision.
We as humans face countless tests every day. From whether or not to cut someone off in traffic or run a yellow-pink-was-that-really-red light to how we handle a financial situation or deal with a difficult co-worker or ex-spouse. (Yep… believers have those too.) Can we stay calm and patient when a toddler is pitching a temper tantrum in the grocery cart? Do we offer help to the homeless man begging on the street corner, or do we pretend not to see him? Do we walk back into the store when we realize that the checker gave us too much change? Do we offer kind and uplifting words when someone needs encouragement, and then turn around remark to another friend how “needy” that person was (bless her heart) in the first place?
Each of these little tests in and of themselves may not establish our overall character. We’re all sinners who deserve every punishment hell can throw at us. Thankfully though, as a redeemed sinner I want to make the right choices allowing the joy of My Salvation to shine through me into the darkness so that everyone can see why I treasure my faith. But every time I fail one of these little tests, it’s like another layer of dust building up on the window of my soul.
Create in me a CLEAN HEART on God, and renew a right spirit within me.—Psalm 51:10
By the way, I’m lying through my crumb-covered lips about the cookies. The box was open before I had finished typing the first line.
Keep watching and praying that you may not come into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” – Mark 14:38
Sweet Heavenly Jesus, please blind me to the short-term pleasure that comes with all of the big and little temptations around me. Fix my eyes on the true and everlasting prize of knowing and responding to every good and perfect gift that comes from you. AMEN.
by Shelly | Mar 6, 2014 | personal |
NOTE: My blog has traditionally been all business, but for at least a little while it is going to become intensely personal. During Lent, the 40 days leading up to Easter, I am participating in a photo challenge. The way it works is that the organizers have given us a list of words, and every day we are supposed to take and share a picture based upon that word. Because I hardly ever do things the easy way, I am also attempting to write a devotional that goes with these pictures. I will probably take the weekends off and will also quite likely miss a few days. Hopefully not too many. Last year I participated in a similar challenge. This link will take you to my 2013 Lenten challenge. This years challenge is entirely blog-based. This year the challenge is sponsored by Catholic Sistas.
Please pray for me and/ or bear with me, and if this isn’t your cup of tea, just keep on checking for portrait posts in between these challenges — or check back in after Easter.
VIRTUE
Virtue
Whenever I think of the word, virtue, in a Biblical context, the Proverbs 31 woman pops right into my head. Do you know her? She’s that ideal perfect woman. We stand in awe of her, but in actuality once we start comparing ourselves with her we feel very VERY inadequate.
In Bible times she was beyond amazing. In today’s world she is the woman who does it all and has it all. I want to be her when I grow up. WAIT! I’m 53 blinkin’ years old.
Here’s how I think Proverbs 31 would describe a virtuous woman in the year 2014:
She is an excellent wife, and her husband trusts her judgement completely because she always treats him well and looks out for his best interest.
She is a successful businesswoman who enjoys her career.
She is a gourmet cook, whipping up all sorts of exotic and ethnic dishes.
She gets up before sunrise every morning.
She takes good care of her employees and treats them all fairly when they have a special need or problem.
She invests well and turns her profits into a farm not too far from home where she plants a vineyard or vegetable garden or an orchard – totally organic, I’m sure.
She works out at the gym to stay fit, and probably has a 26.2 sticker or at least a 13.2 on the back of her spotless mini-van.
Her car doesn’t run out of gas, her bathrooms are all stocked with plenty of toilet paper, and there’s always an extra gallon of milk in her fridge.
She’s the Queen of Pinterest, not just collecting beautiful ideas, but actually DOING them and creating new ones.
She serves in the soup kitchen and chairs the cancer gala.
She dresses impeccably and makes sure her family looks great too.
She has a successful and well-respected husband. Yeah, they really said that smack-dab in all the middle of the descriptions of this woman. WHA?????
She is such a fine artist that people pay well for her designs.
She is afraid of nothing when it comes to the future or getting old.
When she speaks, only wise words come out of her mouth and she is always, always kind.
She keeps her home clean and gets things fixed when they wear out or break.
She’s never lazy — DOH.
Her children are proud of her, not embarrassed to be seen with her at school events or at the mall. Her husband’s proud of her too.
It might be easy to dislike a woman like that if they didn’t throw in that part about always being so WISE and KIND, right? But y’all she’s so dang NICE!
Even if it took a lifetime for her to do everything in the list, just reading it all in one short passage wears on me. Sometimes it motivates me to work harder, to strive for more and better — but mostly it makes me tired. There’s no way I can be all of that. I can’t seem to get past the paper clutter in my office.
What about the many amazing and lovely women who don’t have any children? Those who never married, or if they did, their husband is neither successful OR adoring? How do they feel reading something like this?
What are WE TODAY supposed to do with this perfect PROVERBIAL woman?
We keep right on reading through to the last lines of the verse.
Virtue has nothing to do with doing things and being a financially successful businesswoman. It has nothing to do with spouses or childbearing. It has EVERYTHING to do with verse 30, but most of us are just too tired and intimidated to keep reading by the time we get that far. Here’s what it says:
“ But a woman who respects the LORD, she shall be praised. Give HER the product of her hands and let her works praise her in the gates.”
Ahhh… that’s so much better. Just Honor the LORD. Even a failed Proverbs Woman — someone just like ME — can jump onto the simplify your life bandwagon by flipping over to Micah 6:8.
“He has told you, Oh (Wo)man, what is good; and what does the LORD require or you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.
Dear God …. If you and I work together, we can do that. Please help me to be fair with others — and to be kind — and to keep my ego in check as we walk through this life together. That is all. Amen.
by Shelly | Mar 5, 2014 | personal, special project |
A year ago I participated in a Lenten Photo Challenge sponsored by Rethink Church, an outreach organization of the United Methodist Church. The challenge organizers provided one word for each of the 40 days of Lent, and they the requested Instagram photographs based upon that word. Simple enough … and FUN too. However, I don’t do things the easy way. I took the challenge a step further. Not only did I take the pictures, I also decided to write a devotional based upon that word.
Whoosh! It was such an invigorating experience, but it was also exhausting. I felt like I spent WAY too much time focusing on my Lenten devotionals and I still missed several days too. In fact, by day 32 I had totally pooped out. Here are a few of the images from last year’s challenge.
I didn’t put them into the blog last year, but they are all tucked safely away in a gallery on my Web Site along with the devotionals that I wrote to go with them. Check them out here if you like.
Some of the images from last year’s challenge.
I learned a TON through this process! FIRST, did you know that the 40 days of Lent are really more than 40 days? There are actually 46 days because we don’t count Sunday. WHAT? Leave it to a bunch of church people to do something like that. No WONDER people have trouble understanding how we can take The Bible literally. We can’t even get our numbers straight about the days between Mardi Gras and Peeps. If I had been good at math I would have figured this out a long time ago, but that part’s not important. The important part is that God spoke to me — sometimes we laughed. Sometimes I wept. Sometimes we celebrated, and sometimes He spoke pretty harshly about the life-garbage that I needed to clean up. And I hope and even believe, that those devotions and images encouraged at least a FEW people.
Rethink Church does not appear to be running a challenge again this year, but I did find one run by a group called Catholic Sistas.
I’m not Catholic, but we were saved by the same Jesus. We just tend to focus on different aspects of His teaching. So Sistas… I am entering into an ecumenical journey with you all right now, using the words you suggest for inspiration and playing a little bit of Bible Bingo searching for the words to accompany my photos.
Shout out to the Sistas…. you sound like a group I wouldn’t mind hanging out with for a while. Will you allow a semi-neurotic Lutheran turned Presbyterian turned Methodist to come play?
I’m going to step out even further this time around and incorporate this into my blog — so for a few weeks, my blog which has been 99.9% all about my portrait studio and clients, is going to become insanely personal.
YIKES!
But, my studio brandIS ME, so along with the portraits that support my grocery habit, you get my heart and soul. This is just how I roll.
FRIENDS — What I ask from you is for PRAYER — TONS of PRAYER. This project is hard for me. Just to tell you publicly that I am starting it makes me shake in my sequin covered leopard print house shoes. I’d much rather quietly finish it and THEN share it, when it’s done — but guess what? That’s how all of those someday projects manage to stay in the someday file. Talk about PRESSURE! YOW! Once I publish and share this post, I feel obligated to follow through, and I am the QUEEN of unfinished projects. Did I say I need your prayers? I also ask in advance for forgiveness on the days I don’t get a post up. I’m a lousy blogger to begin with, and now I’m trying to do something every day in ADDITION to running my business — the blog being only one element that is so far behind I can only laugh — because I scare people when I cry.
I can’t put it off any longer — This is Ash Wednesday and today’s challenge word is DUST. Let’s Go!
DUST
Dust, left undisturbed bothers no one. You know exactly what I’m talking about, that thin layer of nasty stuff that we don’t really want to analyze. It builds up so slowly and evenly that we hardly even realize that we are actually being covered up. Before long though, surfaces lose their shine and start to look dull and lifeless. Left even longer, a grittinss sets in. It makes me feel depressed and uncomfortable, even embarrassed. HECK, it sets off my allergies and then I start itching and sneezing.
Then I get grumpy. UGH!
Now, I’m pretty good at ignoring dust for a very long time, especially in dark corners and behind clutter. I’m also pretty good at settling into life patterns where I don’t change my routine. Distractions simply build up, crowding out the more important things like relationships and tasks that actually make some sort of a difference. Bad habits, unforgiveness, ingratitude, pride, greed, busy-ness, they all turn into dust traps. The sparkle is gone. The joy is overshadowed .
And I get grumpy. UGH!
The dust in my soul has been building up, but now that we have brushed up against it, we have left a mark, a big nasty streaky fingerprint.
Today is Ash Wednesday. This is the day we savor our dust and mourn in the ashes of our ruins. We have all messed up our lives and hurt other people. That STINKS!
Many people actually place ashes on their foreheads today as a symbol of repentance and humility, and THAT, I say is beautiful because when we know how dirty we really are, all we want is to be clean.
It’s time to get out the feather duster — maybe the brillo pad.
It’s time for a little house cleaning.
It’s time to get into the Word.
It’s time for a little HEART cleaning.
Pablo Picasso reportedly once said, “Art washes away the soul of dust every day.”
As I embark on this year’s Lenten Photo/Devotional Challenge, I pray that I will shake the dust off my soul and turn it into a shining prism in the big picture window, reflecting Christ’s love on YOU.
See those rainbows dancing around now? Let’s chase them together. I have no clue where this will take us, but I do know that what we find at the end will be better than a pot of gold.
Joshua 7:6 Then Joshua tore his clothes and fell to the earth on his face before the ark of the Lord until the evening, both he and the elders of Israel; and they put dust on their heads.
by Shelly | Jul 1, 2011 | personal, SPCcreative |
We had a little surprise visitor this morning. Isn’t he handsome?
When I first saw that little reptilian head and the back of his shell poking up in the grass, I was afraid we were getting ready to have to confront a big honkin’ snake, so my “Mama Instincts” kicked in and I hustled both dogs back into the house.
THEN, I went back out to investigate, camera in hand.
SOOOOOOO HAPPY that it was NOT a snake because we had ourselves very a nice little visit.
Our guest told me that he had smelled water, and decided he should check it out. Said the places he and his kinfolk usually count on for a little refreshment had purt’ near dried up, and that things weren’t looking too good for the days ahead. In fact, he doesn’t think it’s ever going to rain again in Texas — or even in the whole world. Turtles are known for being a bit pessimistic.
Naturally I told him he was welcome to stay as long as he wanted and to partake of all the bugs he could find. Even turned the sprinkler on him for a little bit, and he was most appreciative.
I asked if he’d mind posing for a few natural-light outdoor portraits, and he perked right up. Did you know that turtles have egos? Oooohhh. This guy is quite proud of himself. When I told him that I thought he looked particularly intelligent, he said that I was darn right. After all, wasn’t he the one that found the green place with the rain maker thing in it?
When I asked his name, though, he just looked at me. Told me I wouldn’t understand Turtlel-ese, and that I should just pick something that I’d remember because names mean more to humans than they do to turtles.
Have you ever tried to name a turtle? It’s harder than it seems.
When I was about eight years old, I had a little green turtle from Woolworth’s. Pokey lived for a short time in our bathroom in one of those spiral dishes with a stiff plastic palm tree growing up in the middle of it. He was a happy and friendly little guy, until the night he took a bubble bath with my younger brothers. Jim, A desert tortoise, came to our back yard in Midland for several years in a row. Everyone knew his name was Jim because someone had painted J-I-M on his back in big red letters with fingernail polish. We figured it was probably the kid named Jim who lived in the Floyd’s rent house down the block for about a year . . . but wild turtles are not to be owned. That’s why he came to stay at our house.
This guy, however, was DEFINITELY not a Pokey or a Jim but he still needed a name.
He thinks he’s a Gulf Coast Box Turtle. At least no one has told him otherwise, so we nearly decided on Karumbe-Boaska, because it means Turtle-Box in Gujarati and it sounds super cool. We had to look up the word for Box on Google Translator. Don’t ask how we knew the Karumbe part.
In the end we decided to keep things simple and go with Sparky in honor of his intelligence and as a nod to Fourth of July Fireworks — of which there will be none in our neighborhood this year thanks to the drought.
Sparky was less than thrilled to make acquaintance with Lucy, so he announced that he’d be moving along. He is DEFINITELY a Sparky, not a Pokey. Maybe he’ll come back to visit, but he’s not making any promises. But thank you for turning on the rain maker for a bit.
