“For a long while I called photography a hobby, and that it was, but my cheap offerings and casual approach almost served as an escape goat to really investing in my craft. This last year I have poured intentionally into this art form and my adoration has only grown with that discipline. I feel I am taking better, more consistent photographs from one year ago, and to be honest, even from two months ago. To pour yourself into a craft and flourish in the evolution is, I have come to believe, a part of how we were created to be. To press, to work, to aspire, and to use that giftedness in the most humble of ways: to serve. You can call it dreams, but really, I think this is more about purpose. I have never considered photography a dream to achieve. It has simply become an avenue through which I have poured myself, even if out of necessity, and have discovered my strengths, my weaknesses, the cost of giving your whole self, and the need to let passions hinge on the edification of others. We were made for this.”
It might seem silly, or certainly a bit desperate, to quote myself, except I shared these words via social media this last week and have been thinking on my professional pursuits thus far. Although less pursued and more either fell into or dragged along by. Not exactly how we envision a success story in our dream inundated modern culture. Young people all the more so are set free to fly into their independent selves, though with the monumental task of taking a passion and turning it into an entrepreneurial feat. I aspired to the same, out of college with a studious background in classical vocal pedagogy, and ready to become some sort of full time touring musician. And although songwriting and touring did indeed play a significant part in my story, the money was rather pitiful, often times (if not all the time) being poured right back into the band in anticipation of some song going viral that would at last make our longed for livelihood profitable. Although provision never came in that way. Rather, I found myself on two significant occasions stepping into the role of Worship Arts in the church. Both by nature of the fact that my husband was pursuing youth ministry, and I happen to fit in nicely. (Two humorously beautiful stories in and of themselves.) All that to say, it was not just photography, but my main investment of leadership in the church that were birthed less out of dreaming and more out of necessity and situational happenstance. And I would not change the journey for anything.
We put so much weight on seeing dreams come to fruition, and at a time in life when we know ourselves very little. Yet if my story can in any small way inspire your own, may you always be prompted to leave room for all that you did not plan. For in the least expected is where you might find not only more of your story, but more of yourself.
EXPOSITION: In looking back on your own story (for those at least 10 years removed from your schooling) did your young aspirations end up fulfilling the deep parts of yourself, or was it something else entirely. Or at least, something else unexpected?
RISE: Leave room for those moments, whether experienced yet or not. There is certainly beauty and a great deal of accomplishment in doing all that you set out to do, but what of yourself is going unnoticed because you have not yet allowed for the room to invest in what you can’t envision?
DENOUEMENT: “Blessed are those who find wisdom, those who gain understanding, for she is more profitable than silver and yields better returns than gold.”