four of fifty-two // nope.

I confidently say yes to any hard task that I can accomplish by gritting my teeth; because I assume that if for some reason I was left to my own devices, I could muster up what I need to conquer. 

now, You ask me to wholeheartedly step into a battle I know my best efforts will lose. my strength and endurance will run out long before the finish line. they already have.

so this is being stretched. not being pushed TO your limits. PAST your limits. now I get it.
self sufficiency down the drain.

first reaction?

NOPE. 

this time, I do not find rest by trying harder and succeeding. my only relief is in admitting that I am unequal to the mountain in front of me and deliberately choosing to surrender myself to leaning on His strong arms to literally carry me through. I am not sure I even know what that looks like half the time, but I am sure that I am about to find out.

peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. 
(john 14:27)

three of fifty-two // well. that was unexpected.

oh hey semester. was not expecting you to dump that much that quickly.

if I realized anything this first week, it is that I am going to learn more than I can wrap my head around by the end of this semester. that realization is exciting (hopefully). it is also intimidating (like terrifying).

the workload is heavy, but the work itself is going to challenge me in how I love God and how I love others for the rest of my life. 

being challenged is hard. hard things make you grow.

hard things also make me want to curl up under a blanket and tell them to come back tomorrow. 

but then I read this.

"Be not afraid of their faces; for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord." 

(Jeremiah 1:8)

I still like curling up in blankets but I am going to be leaning moment by moment on the reminder that He is greater, He is with me, He will deliver. 

(photo credit to my bro

please send snow)

two of fifty-two: greater

g r e a t e r

there are a thousand and one reasons I love alaska. 

one of those reasons my mom pointed out to me the other day (thanks mom) is its vastness.* at any moment in time you are probably fifteen minutes away from views that stretch as far as your eye can see. the land is so much greater than you are; it inspires and humbles at the same time.

I do not usually pick a theme/verse/motto at the beginning of the year. too much changes in twelve months for it to stay applicable, or so I thought. but when I stopped the world and got away to talk to Him, the song "greater is He" by blanca came on my shuffle and my heart grabbed onto it so quickly it seemed I had no choice. 

1 John 4:4

Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.

He is greater. greater than my fears. greater than my past. greater than my class schedule. greater than my finances. greater than my exhaustion. greater than my impatience. greater than my limited sight. greater than my little faith. 

you name it. He is greater than ____.

so whether this is my theme for the year or just this coming semester, I am clinging to it. because sometimes when I look life in the face it seems like it is greater than me, and sometimes it is. 

but it is never greater than God. and He is in me.

He is so much greater than life or me; that truth inspires and humbles without fail.

*vastness: I looked it up, its an actual word.

one of fifty-two: so here's the plan

so here's the plan. 

I want to post something every week this year. 

song, photo, thoughts, what I'm learning, what I want to learn, etc.

I want to be intentional about remembering what God is teaching me and bringing me through.

Hopefully, it will be a blessing, encouragement, or at least entertainment for the rest of you.

I promise: 

• I will not post quotes or Scripture because it vaguely relates to the photo; if it doesn't have meaning or value to me or add to the message, I'll just leave it out.
• There's going to be lots of mountains if I can help it. 
• I'm not going to stress about it. I want it to be an outlet to keep me creating during the semester and rest of the year, but not to the point of ruining the joy of artistic expression. 
• I will try to keep it short and sweet (like me!) but some posts will be longer. just how life goes.

like anyone sharing things with the world, I love love love feedback, including constructive criticism or just a note sharing your thoughts in response. (:

so this is week one. 

(week two coming tomorrow because hey, the year starts really quickly and sometimes the inspiration hits after the fact)

1/52/366

Hello friends! I've started a 366 day photography challenge that I will hopefully finish. Posting everyday on my personal and business page is a bit much, so I will just be posting weekly here on my blog. have fun following along with my adventures, and best of wishes to all of you with whatever challenges you are facing!

1/366 

this is my cousin Claire, late at night New Year's Day when I decided to start this challenge and use the Christmas tree.

2/366

before she left, my cousin and I painted canvases. I can take photos much better than I can paint, but I'm really going to need this reminder from Jesus this year.

3/366

it gets dark real quickly here in Alaska so I found that if I don't take a photo before I get off of work, I have to use creative lighting opportunities - so here's the first of probably many candle photos.

4/366

with the previous lighting knowledge, I snapped this while driving to work in the morning. I'm grateful that there are mountains nearly everywhere I look and you'll DEFINITELY see more of these. hopefully more inspired. 

5/366

I love this scarf, I loved the light this morning, and I loved having more than thirty seconds to get a photo I actually liked. and drinking the tea, even though it was a bit bland. 

6/366

by far my favorite photo of the week. the light was perfect, I drove my car up an icy hill and thought I was going to die, but I didn't and I got this picture which was better than what I had in my head. all happiness.

7/366

back to nighttime photos while I was taking the Christmas tree down with mom. the cat was pretty, and I wanted to at least TRY to frame something somewhat creatively. 

so there's week 1. here's to 51 more.

let's go somewhere // pt1

We live on a super beautiful earth, and I was blessed to be able to drive through some gorgeous country in my travels last month.  I know not everybody has the chance to up and roadtrip on a regular basis whenever they feel like it - I know I don't. So, I thought that I'd share these visual mementos that I was able to capture (a couple of the photos of me were taken by my roadtrip buddy Jono (thanks dude!), he's the guy with sunglasses). I'll be sharing a few more from the second half of the trip next week!

Feel free to peruse and imagine yourself on the road in California, Arizona, and the Grand Canyon, Utah for a few minutes before you get on with your day (:

kinda hard to see, but there's a little dust tornado! 

when Autumn came // Emilee

you fell in love with my flowers but not with my roots, so when Autumn arrived you didn't know what to do

I had to catch the autumn leaves, and then this beauty popped into my life and the two came together so here you go. Photographer's heart = happy. Thank you, Emilee!