How it came to pass...

Please allow me to apologize for that lackluster title. It will never happen again. Can I blame it on it being Thursday or as it should be called, "The day that gets in the way of Friday!"

Friends, I can't wait to share all that God has been laying on my heart and consequently why I've been blog AWOL. Not that anyone really noticed...

First and foremost, at our church's women's event, Outbreak (must come if you live in Houston, TX!), there was this verse Gari mentioned where Jesus spoke when He rose Lazarus from the dead and I just had to share it:
"Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. I knew that You always hear Me; but because of the people standing around I sadi it, so that they may believe that You sent Me."- John 11:41-42
This verse just had my heart cry out as I remembered where I was a year ago, in crazy intense pain and unable to walk but with fresh sight that God had given me in my right eye. I was begging Him for a normal life so I could just clean my house, walk with my daughter to get the mail, drive to Target, and just do normal again. Yesterday, I actually caught myself saying last night how much I had to walk and felt immediately disgusted. I WILL NEVER COMPLAIN ABOUT WALKING AGAIN. And I really hadn't been, but I did get convicted and thought-slapped and rightly so. Praise You Jesus for healing my body, my eyes (for now), and most importantly my soul!

We're getting gazelle-intense again on our finances as the Lord leads and we've been praying. John and I have had Come to Jesus times where we are so fed up and yet, so convicted about wanting to do better when some just want to eat! Lord, forgive us! We want to be a blessing so badly to others, but we have to first get our family in check. And then God gave me a new assignment which has actually been written on my heart since I was born: CREATE AND BE WHO I MADE YOU TO BE! Okay, so go and get out my Mod-Podge? I was still not getting it. I told God that He would have to practically hit me with a spiritual pan for me to see where He was leading me.

Well, He just became more repetitive which was what I needed.
So I prayed some more and thought, surely this is not for me this idea that I could use my creativity and love for pretty things to help my family's finances? I even pulled the whole un-used marketing degree card: "But God I have to live in other cities to do advertising oh and I hate the rat race corporate deal anyway!!!" And then it struck me. Make pretty images yourself. And finally, ideas starting flowing in so rapidly I realized God was blessing me with a new adventure. Thus, Adventure Photo & Design has been born. You can check out the photo-adventures I've been having already. I get to creatively photograph kids, families and get this, make ads for small businesses! Whoo-hoo I didn't just get an MRS degree- although that was the best thing about going to aTm, meeting my future hubby.

I was just in such shock though that God could answer prayers like that. Silly rabbit I am! And that all prayers are important to Him. He treasures them all. From my PLEASE LET ME WALK to my please let us fix our shower! I mean, don't get me wrong here, from the beginning this has all been and I pray it continues to be all about GOD'S PLANS, GOD'S WILL AND HIS LEAD! I don't want anything to do with my own glory, but His alone. So that's it. I've been wanting to write about this for a while and I don't know if it makes any sense at all. But I do know that God gives you crazy-joy when you are in alignment with His will and when I was taking pics and editing them to create art, my heart skipped beats with joy! I can't even tell you how much fun I think it is. Thank you Jesus for being so in love with us that you give us what we love to do!