I Heart Faces: Smiles

I Heart Face's contest this week is: smiles. 

With 4 children that are so very young and so very spirited it's hard not to smile! 

But this image, this shows joy; and joy is priceless.

Project 52: Week 1: I Cling

I've taken the plunge. The plunge into a Project 52 organized by Sandi Bradshaw of Sandi Bradshaw Photography. Every week for 52 weeks, you take a picture and then submit them to her. She posts them in a special album on Facebook and each week chooses her favorite. I have low aims for being among the really gifted, talented photographers and being chosen as a favorite but I have high hopes and aims for growing! Sandi started this project to help stretch other photographers and I want to stretch. 

Stretching is uncomfortable, sometimes even painful. But necessary. Necessary if you want to grow! Sandi is going to be doing assignments that are often self-portraits, at least one each month and that scares me. 

This week the first assignment was a self-portrait. The theme that kept popping up for me was "I Cling." 

I cling to my God.

I cling to His words.

I cling to Him alone. 

And He brings joys... 

(actual submission)

If I don't have His truth, His words, I have nothing. Nothing of importance. So I cling to Him and He sustains me. 

Stuck in "I Want"s

I find myself dwelling in a black hole of a land called, "I want." I continue to look at life through these tainted spectacles and find it harder and harder to pull myself out. 

Here is the list that I find running through my mind very often lately:

- I want to not turn the TV on, even just for one day.

- I want to bake, cook, and eat whole foods without being overwhelmed and under encouraged. 

- I want to speak to my children in an ever gentle voice that does not use tones of harshness.
- I want validation in this life, from my peers. 

- I want to knit. Cute, adorable, beautiful - hats, scarves, pants. 

- I want to sew. Dresses, stockings, fabric decorations, aprons. The list is endless. 

- I want to love abundantly without frustration.

- I want a house full to the brim of children, living blissfully in the moment of messy-ness and fun. 

- I want to cherish the little moments. 

- I want to live IN grace. IN peace. IN rest. IN joy. 

- I want to grow. Spiritually, emotionally, relationally, and in my photography. 

- I want to write. There was a time where I could do this for pleasure. Those days have passed and I miss them. 

- I want to see things around me. I have friends - real and never-met-before "friends" who seem to grasp the little things in each day. Maybe even in just one day a week. But they catch something. They see something and it brings them into a string of insight and they see God; in the details, in the big picture, in the moment. I want to catch those things. I want to see my Creator in everything - tie it all together as He intended. But I can't. 

I feel stuck. Stuck in a never-ending cycle of "I want"'s. So, how do I get out? How do I get back into habits and routines and practices that HELP me achieve these very attainable wants? I don't know, really. But I plan to continue to try to figure it out. I will share something I read last night from "Loving the Little Years: Motherhood in the Trenches" by Rachel Jankovic.

"Are you holding yourself back on things, afraid that the end result will not be worthy of your labor? Are you afraid to fail? Is there some domestic activity that you would love to know how to do, but don't want to try in case it doesn't turn out? Are you afraid to try new recipes? Are you afraid to put energy or money into something that might turn into nothing? Do you think fondly of some day when you might bear fruit, but resist getting right down to business this year? Do you evaluate the necessity of everything, passing it by if it doesn't add up to be practical? Are you limiting the branches upon which you are willing to bear fruit?

...

"You cannot know the depth of His plan for your fruit. SO throw it out there on the ground when you have no plan for its future. Waste it. Waste homemade pasta (and the mess it makes) on your family. Don't save cloth napkins for company only - sew a dress your daughter doesn't really need. Be bountiful with your fruit and free with it. The only thing that you can know for certain is that God will use it." 

The analogy here is of an apple tree. Apple trees take no stock in their apples. Their apples fall to the ground all the time and get wasted often. The branches are what we need to be concerned about because without well cared for and tended branches there would be no apples at all. Our children are our branches. 

This one struck me today:

"There are abundant things to be thankful for that are not on our radar at the current moment. So you have a headache. So the kids are fussing. Well, are you looking at what you don't have (energy and quiet) or what you do have (a head and kids). 

...

So make sure before you start rebuking them, your own heart is in order. Thank God for the headache. Thank Him for these prime opportunities to teach. Thank Him for the scuffle that your children are currently having over who unbuckled whom and why. And then, after your own heart has been sorted out, move on to theirs." 

I Heart Faces: Best Face Photo of 2010

I've never entered in I Heart Faces's contests before but I've always looked at them and thought "I should really try that." So, here I am, trying! This is my entry for their contest this week (and I'm cutting the deadline reeeeeaaaal close) for their Best Face Photo 2010. And it was really hard to choose. (Click on the image to see it enlarged.) 

Oh, and this week's challenge is a voting challenge! So, anyone who feels that my picture is worth winning, you can vote for it HERE! #838