My "For the Love" Encounter

Through hell & high water, okay…more like flight cancellations & a foot of snow (which resembles the first scenario to this solo traveler) I arrived in the Smokey Mountains to embark upon a God designed photography workshop! SWEET, I totally new I was leaving this place a rockstar photographer, especially after meeting the rockstar teachers!! Hallelujah, no more flying blind behind the camera lens depending solely upon those happy accidents!

The first morning together we enjoyed some of the most powerful worship I have encountered in my time here on earth, only a handful of times have I felt the presence of the Lord that tangibly thick in a room and heavy upon my heart like a pile of Glory that could smoosh ya! I was in HEAVEN! During this worship I felt the Lord place a word on my heart that He wanted me to share with my new friends. I felt His burning heart to reach out and touch every single child of His that sat in that room; He wanted to lavish love on everyone like they had not known before and He wanted to use each one of us as His hands and feet to do it. Oh man, what an amazing vision to receive but God surely had picked the wrong wimp to release it to…because the moment I heard my Father’s heart cry, I was overcome with a fear that I have never known before; all consuming! This moment made my journey with fear prior to this trip feel like small potatoes in comparison to the lump I was now trying to swallow, did God really want me to SPEAK OUT LOUD! Oh the HORROR, even though I have done it before and obviously lived…I still couldn’t breathe from the sheer terror! [That was not in my wallflower plans, I came here to hide in the background and write millions of pages of notes on Photography!] The enemy tried to help me find every scapegoat in the book to assure me, that certainly in my introverted preference I could just stay quiet, blend in with the knotty pine and keep it simple. After all with my deaf ears that can’t truly define the Father’s voice there was no need to risk getting it all wrong and stand up to share my heart in front of 25+ people only to be a total fool. Pouring my soul out was risky and felt absurd when I assured myself the word was probably, really only for lil ole me anyway, just a friendly reminder from Him…surely no need to walk up to that microphone. So the moment passed as I rationalized myself out of the idea and later I timidly approached Ginny, the amazing leader of this workshop about the Lord putting something on my heart and she gave me permission to share whatever I felt led to. Awesome! No really, awesomely TERRIFYING because at that moment the fear quadrupled! IS THIS EVEN POSSIBLE TO BE THIS SCARED OVER SOMETHING SO SIMPLE?!?

At the first teaching session I knew I earned my “money’s worth” of photo gold…I learned so much about the nuts & bolts of photography and received a huge revelation that I totally knew nothing about my camera and was using it backwards(painfully humbling to recognize this in the midst of amazingly talented photographers!). Thankfully Lauren helped our class set their camera’s to some fundamentally essential settings…and instantly I was in over my head, staring at a machine I no longer recognized and couldn’t maneuver with any sort of natural ease! Time to get to know this thing all over again! My information retaining tank hit the ‘full’ mark before this retreat barely even began. Oh goodness, this was exactly the crash course I was looking for…if only my brain would cooperate in soaking it in! {BTW: I’m internally celebrating…Donny’s going to be so excited, I’m learning SOO MUCH!} And the teaching progressed to explode my expectations! There is nothing more powerful than a teaching that contains the very testimony of God’s heart when He reveals His will for your life and you receive it, such was the spirit that oozed out of Erik’s teachings….it was in that moment that something started to stir in me, something I couldn’t put my finger on, but my spirit was right there hanging on every anointed word. Did I mention, I’m making some indescribable new friendships as each hour passes, yes I am.

By day 3 (4 worship sessions later still fearfully holding my ground not to speak) I’m noticing a really sweet presence of a spirit of His love just falling down one snowflake at a time blanketing us up on these mountains like the fresh 5 inches that literally trapped us upon that mountain top for the week. Yet a few issues still managed to fester amongst this easy, relaxed setting, I remained absolutely frozen stiff, paralyzed by fear from what the Lord released to me the first day to share and was trying my best to just ignore it and find a rational reason to do so! I was forcing all energy to be totally focused on soaking in every photography detail possible, after all that’s WHY I’M HERE, but by this time I started to see myself from the perspective of a fly on the wall watching myself fumble through the photography piece of this workshop and I’m noticing odd things here & there that I am consciously dismissing on purpose; like the fact that numerous times I walked away uninterested in a conversation people were engage in about business related facts, or if people were sharing great websites to help develop your business I happen to just peruse along my merry way uninvolved. By this time I had fully taken notice I had not expressed one iota of interest in wedding related photography (which was an underlying theme due to the majority being primarily in this business), which of course totally soaked me with another dose of fear. Though I totally aware with all subconsious and consious attention of the spiritual battle within that began the first morning and that part of my journey was keeping me really busy.

During the 3rd day I came to a point where I couldn’t hold the burden on my heart any longer and the Lord allowed me just enough courage to seek out the wisdom of Walt; Ginny’s amazing brother, who was her cohort in the incredible worship. And Walt spoke life into me, the very life I needed, the Lord released revelation, lifted veils and I started to see with different eyes; eyes not masked with fear goggles! During this awesome fellowship with Walt I came to a solid concretely conscious awareness that I was totally missing out on some stellar photography training to be abandoned in my conversation about my beloved Jesus, but I couldn’t bear to break away because I love more than anything to share & hear about Jesus and the life that was budding inside me superseded my desire to have this once in a million chance to learn hands on from real professional photographers. What on earth was happening here?

That evening during our opportunity to worship together I felt a deep desire to just be finished with this epic war of fear and all its torment. Although once we began to sing I felt it come on me literally like a cold breeze, it started to cripple me from the toes up, I literally started losing feeling in my legs. A few times I tried to move my feet with no success to bring myself to that petrifying microphone and speak. I held my bible open to Isaiah 61:3, the promise, my promise, our promise, His promise…I clenched that thing tight like a child clinging to her papa’s leg in terror. Then a moment arose where Ginny said the beginning phrase of the same word I was holding in my heart, proclaiming the Lord wanted us to pray for each other and in that moment a Holy courage arose over me I knew it was time to move now or forever regret this missed opportunity to share what’s on my heart and my legs walked ME right up to that microphone by their very own selves…and I did as I always do in front of “big” crowds [I know, it was 20 some people get over it right…well it looked like 20 thousand through my eyes!]. I stood there shaking like a leaf, nudging up to that horrifying microphone, speaking through my terror and I bawled. Yep, bawled like a little baby. I absolutely just hate that I can’t speak without the bawling part…weird, but to you be the blubbering glory Lord, every tear & snot stream, it’s all for you God, glamorous I know.

So I did it ~ faced the fear and I shared my heart, the most vulnerable place I could go, sharing the greatest fundamental, long-lasting river of life-giving revelation the Lord has sewn into me through Isaiah 61…I bared my soul in just a few short sentences, and the moment I opened my mouth it poured outta me, all of it, every word just came fumbling out through my trembling lips, through my sniffing clogged nasal passages I finally learned to embrace my weakness as a blubbering mess with no speaking skills because I knew this risk was worth it. In this moment I had an encounter with Jesus, suddenly I focused my attention all upon Him, [so I hope in retrospect that what was coming out of my mouth actually made sense because it was not coming from my ‘working’ brain], I was struck in awe by the presence of my Father sweeping over this place with His indescribably beautiful, intentional, personalized, overwhelming love only He can lavish. I watched something awesome occur as I had that fly on the wall perspective once again for just a moment, I saw the hands & feet of Jesus Christ began to move and we loved on one another in prayer and support and tears and hugs in every single way Jesus would die on a cross to have the chance to do to us Himself. And I seen orphan spirits become adopted sons & daughters. And I feel so deeply that we grew into His family in that moment, no longer photographers or new friends or fellow Christians…we were one thing in unison; His children receiving His love as part of His family, chosen by Him = adopted. Oh how this encounter just overflows my spirit with the purpose that I’ve been designed to fill! It was phenomenal, there was a substantial change in the spiritual atmosphere, freedom was released because where the Spirit is there is always freedom. The presence of a greater love stayed and never left this place. Not like any of my other experiences in this type of an encounter with God’s spiritual presence…It didn’t stop when worship was over, it didn’t fade as teachings began, it didn’t subside when the schedule became busy, it didn’t dissipate when obstacles arose, it didn’t grow distant through the [short] night hours…it stayed, in tangible form, love remained, LOVE REMAINED and we just abided in that love and He did all the work in us and through us, changing lives.

As my gracious God longs to do…he gave me one more encounter before I could truly, fully embrace the revelation that I came to while seeking His face at this workshop. Our 4th day together, I found myself wandering into the kitchen like a stray cat, letting my three new southern mama’s love on me and I began to share my spiritual journey with them. We shared about our mutual love for Jesus and I was lost in this soul-fulfilling joy, a mother’s heart lavishing support and encouragement upon me, cheering for my ever-hungry chase after that beautiful Jesus and ensuring me to keep running toward Him. I had the divine privilege to dote over my love for Africa, my beloved Best Family and the orphans that have forever changed my life…and everything else faded into the nonexistent background…even the fact that the whole crew was outside learning all sorts of super important camera lighting tricks (one of the primary lessons I came to learn here) and I was engaged in sharing my love for Jesus, yet again…missing out on some much needed teaching and I couldn’t tear myself away from Him. And so I knew, in my heart that He had shown me what I came desiring to discover, but it was not the answer I had imagined I’d receive. In all honesty actually what I had realized more-so was what photography shoe did “not” fit and there was still a little gray area left for the photography unknown because I was too scared to embrace the real answer He had given me.

So the final night arrived and people are sharing some absolutely amazing stories about what the Lord has done in their life over the course of one week and my spirit is buzzing with fire from the power of their testimony. Personally, I felt like I was pretty sure I knew what route to go when I came home, I certainly knew what I was NOT going to do, but felt like there was more yet to discern, stones unturned, things left to seek. When the sharing started to taper off, I suddenly felt this urge to share what God had revealed to me, yet I totally DID NOT WANT TO…and so I blurted out my spiritual breakthrough that occurred on the journey Jesus led me through to face my fear and speak out in front of all them and I was planning on ending the testimony right there when suddenly I rambled out without my consent the confession that while at this For the Love workshop I learned I’m NOT a professional photographer! And once I spoke those words, I felt an immense, giddy, child-like joy flood me…I was free and I laughed, it was hilarious and funny and oh so ironic to me to have to spend so much money to realize what I’m NOT even though I possibly new before I arrived?! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! {BTW: boy was Donny NOT GOING TO LOVE THIS when I came home}….but I knew, cuz I knew, cuz I knew that I was made to fill a different role in this life than professional photographer and I was so free from finally receiving the fullness of that discernment journey.

So I asked the Lord, WHAT ON EARTH AM I DOING HERE, I TRULY BELIEVE YOU CALLED ME HERE? I just couldn’t believe I mistakenly chased God through all these obstacles to get to the Smoky Mountains and learn this hard earned truth…I mean seriously, He could’ve just let my camera slip off the counter and break into pieces and we would’ve achieved the same goal of “non photographer” for less time & money! And when I asked He showed His face to me and I knew this was a spiritual journey for me, this was entirely about me learning how to follow Him. This was my journey to fine tune His voice. This was my journey of blind faith. This was my chance to grow in obedience. This was my journey to conquer fear. This was my journey to spiritual freedom. This was me walking into my destiny. This was a missionary assignment for me to seek Him and release Him, to be a divine appointment for someone as so many of them were for me.

After all that I finally knew what Photography means to me; it’s part of my secret place, the place where Jesus shows His face to me and it’s simply one way He loves on me like a father & daughter playing hide & seek. I pick up the camera and I seek to see the ordinary through His eyes and momentarily capture something extraordinary and I realized that when I photograph nature and small children that is exactly what happens, joy consumes me, He loves on me with quick glimpses through His lens to capture beauty in something that I had never seen before…right there, this passion, hiding in plain sight, on the back burner…was really a journey about Him revealing more His love for me and me seeking to find it. So photography is my hobby and I’m a hobbyist photographer (which I just learned today existed as a title, so I took it!! YAY!)…and I am free to be just that.

Surely the story doesn't end here, happily ever after and warm fuzzies...

And so you all are wondering WHAT ABOUT DONNY? Well, he did not die of cardiac arrest, nor did he go into monetary, wallet-distressing shock. A great piece of wisdom was released to me once I knew I had to go home to “face the giant” and confess my really expensive non-photography producing excursion to Tennessee before my husband and live to tell about it. Here’s the wisdom given to me “How much Grace does your Father have?”……oh man, GRACE…that gift of grace ~ the grace that I tell everyone else about, oh yeah…THAT GRACE, oh silly Maria haven't you even been praying for months toknow how to live in a greater GRACE…so um, OUCH was this an answer to my prayer? Good Lawd girl watch what you pray for! So I guess now was as good of time as any to put my money(or lack thereof) where my mouth was and that is all I had to go home on…grace (and of course that uber expensive camera strapped to my back).

On my drive home from the airport, I spent an amazing 3 hours in my car being loved on by Jesus. His love remained. He downloaded all sorts of gems that would take a novel to share with you all about what this trip really meant for me, so many facets and avenues and so much was planted and birthed in me through this journey to the mountains. So much revelation that I thought my head might explode trying to receive it all. But I think one of the greatest gems He shared with me as I cried out every single mile home from Minneapolis “Lord, HOW DO I EVEN BEGIN TO TELL DONNY THE ‘BAD’ NEWS?” He answered “You tell him, photography is His hobby too, and it’s my gift to the both of you.”….and I bawled big ole happy crocodile tears of immense joy, OMG, it sooo was OURS, together, to SHARE, OURS ~ the first thing since we’ve married (besides our beautiful boys) to share ONE passion for. All this time Donny’s excitement was not FOR ME, it was his very OWN EXCITEMENT bubbling up through my opportunity. So by the time I arrived home I was nearly giddy to tell him I had wasted all our money, left him for a week to come home with no business to pursue but we had a dandy of a hobby on our hands! Now that is SOME GRACE my friends (especially if you know my hubby, my marriage+money and/or my consuming fear!). Divinely, The Lord beat me home though as He has promised in His word to go before us and also be our rear guard. So I began with a plan to soften his hard heart by sharing Erik’s amazing God-destined photography testimony…and before I even finished sharing the story my husband blurts out the very words jumbling around in my brain….”so what did you discover Maria, that you love nature photography?”........and the joy burst right through the seams of my heart! I shouted YES! WHEW! And I knew there was only seconds to diffuse the 2nd bomb I was sure to erupt with my magical revelation of it being Donny’s hobby too, BUT grace got in the way and…Donny blurted right out in response “I sooo love nature photography too”! And I shouted out in shock OH YES YOU DO(and of course segued into my groovy revelation…thus giving a concrete need for having 2 cameras…which surely validates the uber expensive one we just bought, right?!)!

And I seen right there before my very eyes…the birth of something beautiful ~ Jesus, showing up with the missing tools to help us move our marriage from the sand to the rock ~ through His beautiful gift of nature photography as ONE hobby, He gave it to us ~ His promise in some tangible form beginning to blossom…an invitation to seek & find Him alongside one another together peering through the lens of a camera. And that is what Photography means to me!

PHO⋅TOG⋅RA⋅PHY: The art, practice, or occupation of taking and printing photographs.

I find myself asking questions of myself these recent days, like what is photography, sure it’s the art or process of producing images of objects on photosensitive surfaces, but what is it to ME?

When the Lord first began to awaken my heart to notice I probably qualify for the ‘beyond average’ category in the obsessive photo-snapping department I like to label as “a hobby”; I finally realized maybe there could be something more to this photography thing than hobby status and it might not be so normal to only recognize my children through a viewfinder with crosshairs (of a camera my friends, not the scope of a gun…although there are days!! ha!). For the past 2 years I’ve been pondering this in my leisure time, stalking my children all the while and reminiscing on all the ways my love of pictures has surfaced through my life.

I guess I’ve come to realize over the past months it’s always been there, this passion, in plain sight yet hiding on the back burner where I kept it nicely brewing on luke warm, never paying much attention. Momentarily I moved this pot to the front burner in 2007 and tried to pursue professional schooling but it was just not in the cards so I comfortably placed this pot of dreams back on the burner it belonged! As of recent months thanks to a gradual progression in my job description it was as if beyond my control this pot jumped burners and my passion began to bubble up and boil over in my professional and personal world! I started to take notice doors were opening out of the clear blue and so it required I give this hobby some real attention! [quick sidenote:] Most of you know that when I gave my life to the Lord a few years ago, I left my personal agenda behind when I met Jesus (or at least that is my hope). I threw away my “check list” and traded all my plans for His will and it’s been an absolute thrilling ride alongside my savior every single day, growing in Him fulfills me deeper than anything I’ve ever known before and it’s simply ALL I desire. So when photography started to bubble up to the surface, I felt reservation in pursuing anything without the favor of my Father shining through ~ guiding, speaking & leading and photography has never been on my spiritual/ministry radar, so I took caution because I certainly did not want this hobby to distract me from serving my Lord whole heartedly. I actually wrestled quite intensely this fall & winter strongly trying to discern if this was His will or my hobby on steroids? What I knew without doubt, is I did not need one more thing to keep me BUSY, I was already needing 30 hours in a day to keep up with life! Certainly I did not want to fall into a ‘busy’ trap set by the enemy! BUT, if this was FOR JESUS, I’d run wildly into the unknown and jump head first! SO, which one is it?!? And what about that radical awakening in Africa to my divine design as a missionary? Let that go and pursue this? Could these two worlds intersect? How on earth do I decide! In this process of turbulent discernment, crying out to hear from the Lord I inadvertently (aka divinely) landed on this too-good-to-be-true website called “For the Love” and you guessed it = it was a workshop about photography + Jesus…get out of town, could this even be true?! Lord, You had me at "Let's get away from the crowds for a while and rest." (Mark 6:31)… I’m in!! So now what do we do about all that money involved? I tossed & turned even more trying to decide if I fit the criteria to attend and how I could make it happen, it felt as though it were financially impossible, especially when talking about a consensual husband in the deal.

I know without doubt the Lord gave me just enough signs to blindly take a leap and chase this photography dream to Tennessee for a week and so I did (scared out of my wits). The Lord even blessed me with a willing & supportive husband to pursue this avenue as to which I still remain in shock & awe that piece of the puzzle fit together in harmony for the 1st time in our married lives = one of us pursuing something with the other one’s full support; no dragging, kicking, whining, crying or death threats required! So I threw out all reasoning and figured this just plain ole had to be JESUS, by the evidence of that miracle alone!

In taking the bait to chase this photography dream I set my missionary dreams aside believing that if I pursue something I do it with all my heart, so I thought for certain it was one or the other, I let go of them orphan babies who haunt my dreams and decided my husband’s support and our unity in marriage was probably where the Lord’s will would lie most prominently for me in this season of life. So I grabbed the photography baton and took off running, for all of two weeks, then the Lord snuck up on me out of the clear blue during a January weekend adventure in Arizona and ravished my heart when He surprised the dickens out of me and called me out of the crowd as a missionary AGAIN! And I unraveled like a ball of yarn, turned back into an indecisive mess of mixed emotion, drowning in my uncertainty. Except now it was TOO LATE, tickets were purchased, reservations made and many, many dollars sewed into this photography journey, oh how the horror of failure consumed me every single palpitating heartbeat. February 8th started to look more like a day of reckoning than a retreat! The enemy had me certainly convinced this big of a failure would be the apocalyptic end of my marriage. For weeks I had the deepest internal war raging inside; feeling as though my heart was restored to my missionary destiny[which paralyzes my husband with fear] I couldn’t bear to face Donny and share that I had doubts about this photography journey[now that it was too late to do anything about it], especially when I seen the glimmer of joy in his eyes about all things photography. His excitement for me was unexpected and too precious, something rarely shared in our relationship so I masked the fear in attempts to hang onto his support, even if it was all a facade I longed to be in this harmonious place in our relationship where he accepted and enjoyed the journey I was on in life! I kept holding onto the chance that maybe this was simply an avenue the Lord might use to season me even more for missionary life. Photographer while I wait, but ultimately missionary, I gotcha Lord, this is just a lil busy work between you & me, wink, wink! I was convincing myself maybe, just maybe photography and missions were meant to be together, at least that was the basis of many of my prayers and the place I tried to rest while I clung to an ounce of strength to live by faith. In all my waging wars of fear and indecision I kept returning to the fact that I heard my Father’s voice calling me to this photography workshop, with His confirmation a time or two and I had to proceed on that alone UNTIL He shows more of Himself. It was the only calm in the storms that raged inside my heart but it was those moments of soothing comfort that helped me brave the stormy seas of “second guessing” up until the moment I boarded the plane to Tennessee. [and because that was the only choice after configuring every possible option to back out of this workshop and receive a refund but coming up short with no logical, honest plan to do so.] So I boarded the plane, uber expensive camera strapped to my back with the belief that I would come home as a full-fledge pro photographer just as I had promised my husband and soon I’d recoup all that money we’ve sewed into this latest “Maria adventure”…

So what happened in Tennesee at For the Love photographers workshop? God showed up...

and you'll have to stay tuned to hear what happened! ...to be continued...