Listening to this album today and enjoying the reminder is gives…join me. Listen with me. Lord help our unbelief. Ray
Album: Red Mountain Church – Help My Unbelief
House Beautiful…. May 8, 2010
The Church has been on my mind lately (I know I said I would write something “not spiritual” but I’ve had this on my mind for the last several weeks). If you are asking why, let me tell you why.
When I say the Church, I mean the people that make up the Church. Not the building, but the people. I heard today’s sermon that apart from the Word of God, People is where God chose to let his Spirit dwell. That means something. It means something to me.
I need to share a little bit of my story that has lead me to where I am right now. A part of my story that was far from the Church, yet amongst it’s people at the same time.
I had just moved 15 hours away from my family in Georgia, to a small town in east Texas. Denton…a small and wonderful town that I love very dearly. I had one friend, no idea what the year held for me and A LOT of expectations. I say a lot because there were a lot. Too many in fact. I didn’t know it at the time, but God was about to make kindling of my expectations. I had moved to TX to attend a “Women’s Discipleship Program”, fondly referred to as “The Program” at Denton Bible Chruch. I had prayed about going for over two years before graduating college. So you can only imagine what I thought this “Program” was going to be and do, etc. One of my biggest expectations about it was that I was going to leave with each girl as a close friend, a very close friend. In fact I would day dream about how close and tight knit we would be. How we would have all these inside jokes and laugh and talk so easily with one another. I assumed that there would be an easy comraderie between each of us that would form into this sort of “sisterhood” – sorority if you will. I had no idea what God had planned to teach me that year, and I’m very glad I didn’t. I would have never gone to TX if I had known.
Surrounded by 17 other women was not the place to feel lonely. But I can tell you I felt a deep lonliness. I longed for friendship, longed for someone to come and steal me out of this deep pit. Tell me I was worth something, and that they really really really wanted to be my friend. No one did. No one saw my pain, or if they did they left it a lone, wise enough to see that if it was opened up on them they would never escape. I would wait for a phone call, anyone to come and ask me out of my lonliness and sorrow. I desparetly wanted someone to make it all better and yet no one could. I found myself backing away from people day after day, allowing less and less people in. Pushing any kind of friendship away and entering into this type of paranoia. I thought that no one, no one, wanted to be around me, that they literally hated me, loathed my very presence, and sat around talking about how much they hated me and how pathetic I was. I imagined that they purposefully didn’t call me, and excluded me from every activity. I’m not making this up, I believed this, this was truth to me. Everyone was an enemy and worst of all God knew about all this and let it happen anyway. He let me wallow in this hurt, and pain and sorrow…I really thought he didn’t care. I would beg him to stop all these things in me, to bring someone to love on me and make things better. He didn’t. I still hurt. He let me feel sorry for myself, He let me bask in my self pity, He let me pull away from everyone that was in my life. He let me find myself utterly alone and hurt and crying myself to sleep most nights. I didn’t understand the lowness of that place, the importance of that lowness…but God did. He brought me there for a very very important reason. He didn’t bring me to the bottom to show me the top, He brought me to that place to show me Himself. For the longest time I had looked at myself as a prize, a wonder, a gift to the whole of the human race. I was something and everybody knew that (at least I thought they did) I had something to offer the world and I expected people to chase after me and pursue me and love me. The world revolved around me and life was perfect. So when I found myself at the bottom of this pit I looked up and couldn’t even see the top to get out. I was stuck and abandoned. Alone and scared. I remember how lost I felt that I would drive around Denton at night, weeping in my car, wishing someone knew my pain and hurt and yet I didn’t want anyone to know this. I didn’t want the superficial comforting of people telling me that I was “ok” and “liked” trying to make me feel better or less sad… I wasn’t “ok” and I knew that, God was showing me that, I was just having a hard time listening, because I kept running further and further away. I had made my bed and now I had to lie in it. Self-pity was not a fun bedfellow.
One night about 6 months into Program, I was intensly overwhelmed. I got in my car and drove to one of the parks on the other side of town. It was the middle of the night and I had to get out of the house and away from this feeling inside of me. But I couldn’t out run it this time, I couldn’t drive fast enough, or cry hard enough. My pain had found me, my Lord had found me. I remember sitting in my car weeping, screaming, crying out to God to take this all away. To make it stop, to make people like me, to give me friends, to make life easy. Why did life have to suck like this? Why did I feel like this? Why did I have to cry so much? I had not been reading God’s Word because I had been running from it in a sense knowing that it would tell me what I didn’t want to hear, but that night I had decided I would be brave and face this pain, face God and just try to figure this all out. I don’t know what I read or where I turned but I do remember this. That God met me there. He changed me there. He started telling my heart that it was wrong, and sinful and bad. That I was not good or good enough, that I wasn’t what I always thought I was or should be. That I was holding on to lies, lies I had fed myself and lies that I had been fed. But you know what was funny? He didn’t yell these things back at me, he told me lovingly and firmly that I was wretched and sinful and that I had been believing lies. He came to me like a father, he ran after me and pursued me the entire time. He was faithful when I was not. Instead of lies, he told me the truth. He told me that I was selfish. He told me that I had chosen to believe the lies, that I had not put in Truth to fight them and that eventually I had been broken down by them. He told me that I was nothing and that it was wrong of me to think so. He humbled me and yet he comforted me. The truth about myself was that I was nothing, and yet I was something to him. I was his daughter, his friend. He told me I was a slave to other people, and that I was placing my worth and needs on humans who could never supply those things for me, ever. He told me I was a slave to sin, and that I needed Him, that the deep lonliness was only something He could fill. I remember putting on some song from a Delirious? album and singing along to the words and really listening to them talk about the Lord. He was telling me about himself. He was speaking the truth to my heart and putting on a salve that began healing me. He didn’t make everything all better. In fact I looked at the aftermath of my sin and the lies I had believed and had no hope that things could be repaired. I had pushed everyone away and had left myself nothing, not a shred. But God is in the business of restoring people and rebuilding places. He knew what he was doing. He had brought me out of everything I thought I needed to be happy to show me Himself, to show me how much I needed Him. I needed Jesus most, but I needed people too. The Lord showed me that it wasn’t “them” that had the problem, like I always suspected, it was actually me. I had believe those lies about everyone and now I had to un-believe them. I had to tell myself the truth everyday…and one of those truths was that I had to pursue people if I wanted friendships. I had to lay myself aside and place that person as important. I had never done that, it felt wrong at first, and it was hard. Everything in me wanted to recoil and crawl back into my hole. The Lord knew and he must have given me courage to even attempt this…I couldn’t have done this on my own strength. I would have failed. I wasn’t trying to fix myself…the Lord was fixing me, redeeming me, redeeming my brokenness. Jesus had died for this very reason and I had been trying to ignore that…ignore my brokeness. Every day after that I had to face that brokeness with Him…he pushed me, he proded me, he told me to put myself aside and talk to some folks. He told me to get interested in these girls, even if it was painful. It was painful, horribly so. I didn’t want to get to know the very people I felt hated my guts, that had been talking about me behind my back, or had purposely avoided and not invited me to things. But I did it anyway. Do you know what happened. I made friends, I made really good friends. The Lord redeemed me, and set my feet on a rock (that was him) and from that place I could persue people not of my own strength but out of His. He made it about Him and not about me. He lead me to HIS beautiful house, and introduced me to HIS beautiful family… He reminded me where I came from and who I belonged to, and that was HIM.
Ray
Believing Before Feeling…The Divine Will March 11, 2010
I finally did it, I finally did it! Yes I finally bought the book “The Valley of Vision”. If you’re unfamiliar let me just tell you a few wonderful things about this book.
1. It is a book of puritan prayers & devotions.
2. It is mostly written like verse, or poetry…beautiful
3. It is one of the most beautiful, expressive and heartfelt pieces of literature pieced together you will ever read. (I know that’s a bit strong but I really do think so. As far as collections of multiple peoples works go.)
I was first introduced to the prayers of the puritans on a summer project in Daytona back in 2004. My very first summer on the SBP we did something called prayer training. I know what you’re thinking, a bunch of hooligans getting together on the beach, sure we were praying…hahaha. I can almost not believe it myself. But, yes, infact we did pray, and one of the things that the teacher used were these things he called “puritan prayers”…from the beginning I thought them so beautiful, so wise, so attractive (Now don’t think I’m super spiritual or anything, I really just liked the way they sounded and yes they were deeply profound and said things my heart ached to say and couldn’t quite voice). When I found out they were housed in a book, bound and in print I told myself one day I would own a copy of this seamingly humble book…and that day my friends has come. I own “The Valley of Vision” – It doesn’t claim to be a book that teachs you how to pray as much as a book that expresses the prayers of the saints and humbly points to the heart of God…They are convicting prayers and they do not play around. They mean business!
So the title of this blog is “Believing before Feeling…The Divine Will”. I took the title from the title of the prayer – “the Divine Will” with a line from the prayer that struck me. The fact that I do a lot of “feeling” with out really “believing”. I have been realizing that it’s easy to have faith when you feel like it. When something seems to be going your way…of course then, it is the will of God. But I’ve been struck with the fact that not everything goes my way, and then how do I react? How do you continue to believe in God, how do I still love him faithfully and serve him even though, maybe he hurt my feelings by not giving me what I wanted? Or maybe he said “yes” to something and it wasn’t quite the “yes” I was looking for and now I’m not as happy as I once was with the whole plan. I think it comes down to realizing his “Divine Will” superceeds all these feelings and even calls us to put these “feelings” under his authority and control. He asks that I believe him before I feel anything. To me that feels (hahah) impossible. I include an exerpt of the prayer to get a better understanding of what I’m saying…
THE DIVINE WILL
“O LORD,
I hang on thee; I see, believe, live,
when thy will, not mine, is done;
I can plead nothing in myself
in regard of any worthiness and grace,
in regard of thy providence and promises,
but only thy good pleasure.
If thy mercy make me poor and vile, blessed be thou!
Prayers arising from my needs are preparations for future mercies;
Help me to honour thee by believing before I feel,
for great is the sin if I make feeling a cause of faith…”
Do you see, do you hear, can you tell what I’m trying to say from this little exerpt? Maybe not, but I hope so. There is a confidence that I think I lack many times when seeking the Lord in prayer. I think I mostly say things in a flowery, and pretty way, but I don’t state the true and undeniable facts about HIM, and about my relation to HIM. By saying these words I am not immediately changed, but I am thoughtful, I am contemplative and I am truthful with myself and with God. The honesty is really what I love.
The rest of the prayer for those who wold love to finish it…
“Show me what sins hide thee from me
and eclipse thy love;
Help me to humble myself for past evils,
to be resolved to walk with more care,
For if I do not walk holily before thee,
how can I be assured of my salvation?
It is the meek and the humble who are shown thy covenant,
know thy will, are pardoned and healed,
who by faith depend and rest upon grace,
who are sanctified and quickened,
who evidence thy love.
Help me to pray in faith and so find thy will,
by leaning hard on thy rich free mercy,
by believing thou wilt give what thou hast promised;
Strengthen me to pray with the conviction
that whatever I receive is thy gift,
so that I may pray until prayer be granted;
Teach me to believe that all degrees of mercy arise
from several degrees of prayer,
that when faith is begun it is imperfect and must grow,
as chapped ground opens wider and wider until rain comes.
So shall I wait thy will, pray for it to be done,
and by thy grace become fully obedient.”
More I could say, but I’ll leave it at that for now. Next time I’ll stop being so spiritual and talk about life a little for a change.
I can plead nothing in myself…
Ray
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love February 26, 2010
I have seen God have the heart of teacher towards me this week. He has been using all the little things that have been growing in my heart to show me himself more fully and my brokeness more clearly. Here are a couple of things that have been wonderful in reminding me who I am and who I belong to!
“He redeems my soul in safety”
- Ps 55:18 (ESV)
A hymn I LOVE singing in church…everytime we sing it I envision such welcoming from the arms of Jesus…he is my home!
Out of my bondage, sorrow and night,
Jesus, I come; Jesus I come.
Into Thy freedom, gladness and light,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my sickness into Thy health,
Out of my wanting and into Thy wealth,
Out of my sin and into Thyself,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of my shameful failure and loss,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the glorious gain of Thy cross,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of earth’s sorrows into Thy balm,
Out of life’s storms and into Thy calm,
Out of distress into jubilant psalm,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of unrest and arrogant pride,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into Thy blessed will to abide,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of myself to dwell in Thy love,
Out of despair into raptures above,
Upward forever on wings like a dove,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the fear and dread of the tomb,
Jesus, I come; Jesus, I come.
Into the joy and light of Thy home,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Out of the depths of ruin untold,
Into the peace of Thy sheltering fold,
Ever Thy glorious face to behold,
Jesus, I come to Thee.
Here’ s alittle snipt if you want to listen…click on demo mp3 and click open…
http://www.igracemusic.com/hymnbook/hymns/j02.html
Other things that have been tumbling around in my head…
“You can’t slander human nature,
it is worse that words can paint it.”
-Spurgeon
“It is the poor center of a mans life; self”
- Francis Beacon
A reminder to my heart what I am called to…out of myself to dwell in THY love Lord…
Romans 8 : 1-17
Life in the Spirit
1 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power[a] of the life-giving Spirit has freed you[b] from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature.[c] So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life[d] because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
12 Therefore, dear brothers and sisters,[e] you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do. 13 For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature,[f] you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children[g] of God.
15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children.[h] Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”[i] 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering. (Taken from the New Living Translation)
Learning to dwell…
Ray
Sharing a Piece of Me February 21, 2010
I have wanted to share these drawings I did about 2 years ago for a project in the Program. These drawings are from the Book of John…they are the “I AM” statements of Jesus. Just sharing a piece of me…
Ray
There are so many things… February 21, 2010
There are so many things I can’t even talk about right now that steal my thoughts lately. That’s the worst thing I could have ever written. I know. I’m sorry. It leaves me no room to say anything really. What I can talk about is all the stuff behind the aparent unmentionable topic.
There are so many things…
I think about a lot
I feel
I pray even harder about
One thing I am not lacking in my life these days (and am grateful for) are the stories. I have heard a lot of really really really great stories from people lately. Oh of course they are good and fun and funny stories, full of life and love and happiness and excitement. Some are awkward but most are about the common everyday life things that we all go through. I was thinking about it today how often we overlook how good a story is, it’s meaning to the author and the meaning to the listeners…I wish I was a good story teller. But I’m not, I can’t even say I am…my stories fall very very flat. I’m not lying and I’m not saying that to get you to tell me otherwise. I am bad at it, and that’s okay…I guess. I wish I could weave a story so wonderful and beautiful that I would capture a room, a crowd, a nation…but back to the story (hahahah) So the stories of others have invaded my life…but it’s led me to the grander story…the story that is our lives. I just think about how much we think about the current things in our lives with nothing but a fleeting thought…not realizing we will never have that moment back except if remembered in a story. A story is a window and picture in time, the feelings the thoughts and actions of others at another time and place. There is an essence captured by each participant and there are always multiple sides to each story…always!
I wish I could put down the current story of all my life contains right now…but I can’t…not now. Not until it is very much a memory. Not until there are things worked out that make the story just right, or make it fall apart and begin a new …I don’t know how it’s all going to end, it’s all very vague and in it’s first draft. One day you will get the full story, but until then you get a story about stories! There are so many things…they are all very good and very exciting, but they are still so very unwritten right now.
There are so many things…unwritten,
Ray
3 months to get her phone number = playing hard to get January 29, 2010
Ok so I just HAD to share this story from today. All the girls in the office were busting out laughing after this happened.
So…the day started a little “off”…some orders were wrong (totally my fault, 2 1/2 inches is not 10 1/2 inches btw…learned that the hard way) and I was not feeling the whole “being at work today” vibe. Well about 11 o’clock this morning a gentleman that had ordered some plexiglass came by to pick it up. When he walked in the door immediately his phone rang. Instead of ignoring the call he took it. Little did we know what was to follow. He started talking about this woman, ” Yeah, she’s really nice and very classy. She was married to a doctor”. All of us started to look at one another thinking what the heck is this guy talking about, but he had us…we were doing some serious eavesdropping. “Well, you know she’s my sons nurse at the mental hospital (oh really?!?!)…she’s really nice and I’ve been trying for about 3 months to get her phone number. Well I finally got it and you know it wasn’t easy (hum I wonder why?), but she finally gave it to me.” “Well I thought you might want to give her a call. She asked if you were someone who was just interested in being friends (really?! Friends at 50? Maybe she’s not so interested, you think?), and I told her you were. So do you want her phone number? “
By this point we are all about to die sitting there in silence…Nicole had to get up and go to the back of the office. So it gets better…He ends up giving the info to this guy (mind you this guy is in his late 50′s, early 60′s)…as he is giving the guy on the phone the info I look at Debbie (my boss) in her office and pick up my pen and start writing the info down myself…Yup, I TOO got Glenda’s info. That was the lady’s name…I even got her phone number. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH. At that point Debbie almost lost it too…It was the perfect thing to just turn the whole day around. What made it better is that we Facebook stalked her and found her! CRAZY! She seems classy and like she would be a nice lady!
A word of warning…know that people ARE listening…so if you’re trying to get your “hook up” on – know that you will be laughed at after you leave! Just saying. I thought it was awesome…seriously that one incident turned my entire day around…Gosh I love laughing!
I think Glenda was playing a little hard to get…or a little “don’t want to be gotten”…if you know what I mean – not the most ideal place to meet someone – a mental hospital?! Really?! Smooth, real smooth!
Ray 
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There is Joy… January 24, 2010
Can I just say that there is so much Joy in Christ! This week particularly I have seen the joy that is and can be had in Christ. Now most of you know that I’m back in Augusta and things have changed a lot since the last time I was here (mostly people really) and there have been a lot of rocky roads and bumps along the way in getting back into the community here. At points in that journey to community and I am still on that journey there have been some times where the joy of the Lord has been hard to see. Vailed, if you will in cloud cover or in a thick fog or mist. But never has it ever left completely.
This morning’s sermon was about JOY. The joy that is found in the creation, the creating of the creation, and the Creator Himself. Oh what a wonderful, joyous God we serve! I seriously left church with the most encouraged spirit and the lightest step and biggest grin on my face. There is something to knowing that my God is joyous about the things he does that makes me so excited. In a way it confirms the reasons why I find joy in the little things, in life itself. To me there has always been this “wonder” about life. I can’t get enough of this wonder, in fact I hope I never do…but to me the finding out about life is the joy, the wonder the excitment. We have (at church) begun a sermon series through the book of Genesis. Today was Chapter 1. The point made was that there is JOY in everthing that God has done. When he created the light in the universe he called it “good” which means “BEAUTIFUL”. I’m glad I found that out…that when God called something “good” he was literally calling it “BEAUTIFUL”. Think about all the things he called beautiful then, everything he made he called beautiful and then he created man and woman and called them “very good” or “VERY BEAUTIFUL” . Oh, that we would live a life that says that God calls us, his creation, beautiful. When we fell because of our sin, God did not call us “un-beautiful”, no he called our sin what it was, ugly and said that HE could make all things new again (2 Cor 5:17-19). Oh my goodness my heart is bursting with thanksgiving and gratitude and love for the one who has called me out of darkness into a marvelous light! It is he that is wonderful, he delights in his creation and that causes my heart to delight in him. Honestly I love this creation he has made, it is full of wonder and beauty and lovliness that I most often can not comprehend. It makes me glad that the one who created it Loves it more than I could ever love it, that he loves what he created. So many times I think of God as nothing more than a dissapointed, disgruntled man who can’t stand us and can’t wait until things end so that he can start again. How reassuring to me that he enjoys us and this earth and all this beauty around us, as much if not more than us.
Something that has brought out this “joyfulness” in me is a book that I just started reading entitled “A Scandalous Freedom…The Radical Nature of the Gospel” (Steve Brown) . I must say that I was a bit scared to pick it up, fearing that this so called “freedom” would really be more bondage. In fact the opposite…I have been more encouraged about my God from reading this book than I have in a while. My God is a god of FREEDOM, a loving and graceous God. If you have a chance, and are looking for something worth spending your time doing, check out this book…take time to look into the free nature of the Gospel and see what it really meant for Jesus to die for you and for me and the world. It is often cliche to mention this verse, but I’m going to. Take a minute to think about the words in the following sentence and really think what they mean about who God is and his character…
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
WHY did God send his son? It was because he LOVED THE WORLD…it doesn’t say that he sent his son because he hated the world, does it?!
The next verse helps solidify that very reason…
“For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
God desires to rescue the things that he has created, he doesn’t want them to perish! He doesn’t want you or I to perish! What does that say about Him? Oh my goodness it says a lot. It says a lot to my heart and it says alot about the joy that is in God and in me as a child of God. I feel almost as if I’m overwhelmed by the joy of the Lord (which is why I’m writing this) because I can’t keep it in, I want to dance and sing and shout and laugh and enjoy the life that God has given me on this creation of his that he Loves and in Him. Oh what a life! I just wanted to say…There is Joy. So. Much. Joy!
Psalm 4:6-8 (NIV)
6 Many are asking, “Who can show us any good?”
Let the light of your face shine upon us, O LORD.
7 You have filled my heart with greater joy
than when their grain and new wine abound.
8 I will lie down and sleep in peace,
for you alone, O LORD,
make me dwell in safety.
To HIM who makes all things new!
Ray
January 9 January 11, 2010
Thought I would share this little snipit from this wonderful little treasure of a book my mom gave me for Christmas. The title is “Daily Help” by Charles H. Spurgeon. Now I have never read Spurgeon, but I have wanted to. This is just a little taste and I must say he’s said some pretty amazing stuff this year…it’s only 11 days into the new year and he’s put me in my place a few times. This entry just happened to strike me as share worthy… enjoy and ponder on this a bit, will you?
“Omnipotence may build a thousand worlds, and fill them with bounties; Omnipotence may powder mountains into dust, and burn the sea, and consume the sky, but Omnipotence cannot do an unloving thing toward a believer. Oh! rest quite sure, Christian, a hard thing, an unloving thing from God toward one of his own people is quite impossible. He is as kind to you when he casts you into prison as when he takes you into a palace; He is as good when he sends famine into your house as when he fills your barns with plenty. The only questions is, Art thou his child? If so, he hath rebuked thee in affection, and there is love in his chastisement.”
A bit of encouragement as we face the New Year not knowing what it may hold for each of us…God is great, omnipotent in fact. He however knows what is good for each of us. Better than we know oursleves. And he LOVES us, how glorious!
Ray
New Year…No Fear January 11, 2010
As I aptly put in the title, this year is going to be a “grab the bull by it’s horns” kinda year. I have been thinking about how EXCITED I am for 2010!!! It’s a new decade, a new beginning, a new everything…and it sounds pretty futuristic if you ask me. Something I’ve been thinking over alot these last couple of weeks is how much new things scare me. Well, this one new thing scares me…starting my own photograhy business. The funny thing is, is that I’m not actually trying to start a business, but business keeps kinda falling in my lap…people are finding out that I did a friends engagement pics and I’m starting to get asked about it…why, even today I got asked by a lady a church! Word gets around, people…but I have some legit fears [at least they seem legit to me]
1. I have no acutal photography training [isn't that essential?]
2. I have looked at other photog’s blogs and websites and people are just too stinkin good! Seriously, like good, good!
3. I have probably NO business sense, or no sense for business…I just like taking pictures…I have NO IDEA how to start a business?!?!?!
4. Oh I don’t know, I could go on and on about how I CAN’T do it…but I really think I should at least try. For posterity’s sake. I’ll probably reget it if I don’t at least try! [I know I will regret it]
5. So I guess that means I’m going legit…so this list no longer has use…moving on.
I know it sounds like I’m a total chicken, but I really have a lot of fears, fears of failing and being terrible, or completely disappointing clients and not being able to work with the people asking for my services…I’m living in a future that doesn’t exist. To coin a scene from [500] Days of Summer…my “Expectations” and my “Reality” are not connecting at present. They are exisiting on separate planes right now, and I’m afaid that they won’t ever intersect.
My offical new years resolution this year is to start a business, no matter what happens. I will do what I can and see what the Lord does, clearly he’s bringing people to me. I have yet to go ask people to let me take pictures of them, that’s always a plus, and yet I’m afaid they see something that doesn’t really exist in me…I don’t want to disappoint them. Oh, I just cringe at that thought! Gosh, why do I care so much what they think? Ugh! Lord teach me to care not for their approval but for yours! It is so hard…but it’s real!
So making a plan would probably be a good idea…you think?!? So I’m going to go and brainstorm about what I’m going to need for this thing to get off the ground…pricing might be good, business cards, and maybe a little professionalism thrown in there…any ideas would be much appreciated.
I will not fear what the future holds…instead, I think I’ll be a little excited [this is what I've wanted for so long, duh]
Being Business Minded,
Ray 
