Portrait studio + too much time away from family = time to close studio!

That is the short of it, the long of it is below. If you just want to know what now, skip down to that bolded heading. If you want to know how I got to this decision, read on.

I have been in business for myself for 11 years. It seems hard to believe.. but 10 of those have been dedicated solely to photography. Mostly weddings, but lots of portraiture in the past 5 years, and with 2 different studio locations. I only moved into my Roop's Mill studio last summer. But I will be closing the portrait side of my business as of September 1. I will continue with weddings as usual.

This is a heartbreaking decision for me, yet I feel completely at peace about it. When I survey the last 3 years of my life, I am not happy with it, and yet - it seems I have hit this great place in my career. I have worked hard to be "known" in my area for portraits. I have finally gotten studio space with property to shoot on. I have great business connections. I am busy. And yet, I have been giving my family my leftovers and am super burned out. I have spent waaaay too many all nighters editing, stressed myself out over clients enough to snap at my kids constantly, and have been so uninvolved in my husband's ministry I can only name a few of the kids in his youth ministry. That to me is a shame. If I hear one more person say, "I know you must be really busy." I think I will scream! I HATE the busyness of my business. I will not have to stand before God to give account for my business. I have to stand before him to give account for my marriage and my parenting. That weight hit me like a ton of bricks late this spring.

I was a photographer before I had kids. I had a thriving business before kids... so it never occurred to me to set it aside when I had kids. I was my own boss, I could manage the amount of work I wanted to take on. But, as many of my close friends can tell you, I am a creative type - not an organized type and definitely not a business type. I am terrible at business to be honest. But, I do have drive, and I wanted to have a portrait business as well as wedding business. I loved shooting seniors, babies, families, food even! And so I pursued all of it.

But when I was with my kids, I was distracted by work stresses. When I was at work, I was distracted by mommy-guilt. Any working mom knows this divided feeling. It is awful. So awful that the past 3 years have been miserable in that sense. Sure, the business was growing, but inwardly I was shriveling up.

I knew I wanted more time with my boys and Pete. But I couldn't stop what I had started. I even had various people working for me at different points along the way. I knew I wanted more time with my boys and Pete, but I couldn't stop what I had started... could I? With everyone and their mother starting photography businesses lately, who closes one??

So here is the transparent, vulnerable part; the ugly part that comes to the surface when God is working a painful but GOOD refining process in you. I am a control freak and fear has driven me for the past 6 months. I kept thinking, if I quit portraiture now, I will never be able to get back into it. I have worked so hard to create a space for my style of portraiture in my area and now newbies will ride on my coattails and take all my business. I felt that I had paid my dues and wanted to stay in the game to get what I felt I was owed. But the more I stayed in the game operating with this wrong spirit, the less satisfied I was. The more control I wanted to exert over my life, the more out of control I began to feel. I realized I had begun to tie up my identity in my career. Big problem.

My identity does not come from a brand, a logo, or a name in my very fickle photography industry. My worth is not based on who likes or doesn't like my images, how much a client invests with me in time or money or in the accolades of peers. My identity is in Christ alone. For some of you, this may sound strange. It may seem like the craziest time to close my portrait business and what the heck does this have to do with Jesus?

In the world's eyes closing the portrait side of the business may seem like a failure. I may seem like I am walking away from future successes. But what I am choosing instead is worth far more than any money, accolade, fame or even self satisfaction that my career can bring, and that is to raise my boys to be men of God, who live lives of integrity and honor God in all they do. I need to choose to stay close to Pete and pour more into our marriage than I do in building a business. My identity needs to come first from being a follower of Christ, then a wife to Pete and then a mother to Caden and Ryder. How does my identity come from those things? Ask yourself, what is the first thing you think about when you wake up and go to bed? What do you spend all your time on? What does your checkbook reveal is your priority? For me, I want my photography business to not be the answer to any of those questions and right now it is. So I am putting it to rest.

This all just came into focus for me recently. At first, I thought I was making a big sacrifice of my own personal desires in exhange for quality time with my family. But I realized I had already been sacrificing my family to an idol. The idol was "success" as a photographer. And as silly as it is to watch a live human with a soul bow down and offer gifts to a lifeless manmade idol, that is exactly what I was doing. By scaling back and cutting out the portraiture and the studio, I hope to focus more on my family. I want to be emotionally and spiritually more in tune with a husband who has the crazy emotionally/spiritually draining vocation of pastor. I want to put my kids to bed and go to bed myself, not go to work!

I can see now that my security was coming from how well my business was doing or how well clients liked me or whatever. God has been pulling on my heart over the past few years to return to a homeward focus and I have ignored Him. He has been giving me hints and signs at what He wanted for me and I was stubborn and selfish and did not see or chose not to see them. This caused me a lot of pain and anguish this past year. Some of you have said to me, "I don't know how you do it all." and I jokingly reply, "I don't claim to do it well!" And while I shrugged those comments off with a joke, the piercing truth was there. I have not been doing it all well. I thank God for Pete and a few close godly girlfriends for being a sounding board and speaking truth to me when I sought them out for counsel. It is rare to have friends like this and I am grateful to you. (Want real friends like this? Stop faking it and get real: brutally honestly transparently real).

I covet your prayers. I am at peace with my decision, but it seems at every bend that there is someone or something posing a temptation to veer off course. An influx of portrait requests, opportunities becoming available, etc. But I am more excited about some room to breathe in my life, focus on my quickly growing boys and the ability to provide better customer service to my wedding clients. I am excited to refocus my energy on weddings solely and some teaching here and there of my photography classes. I want to get back into ministry. I want redefine my identity to be 100% found in Christ alone.

So what does this mean?

If you are a current portrait client (meaning you have a scheduled session and contract with me) I will be honoring the schedule and contractual agreements. I am no longer taking on new sessions. My September is very booked with weddings and I will be in Mozambique with Pete for part of October. If you have been given a gift certificate or have one from an I Shoot My Kids class, please contact me immediately to make plans. If you have had a session with me and want to purchase the disc of images, please contact me for pricing. And look back soon as I may be posting some items for sale from the studio/portrait side of my business :)

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

I am glad to finally post my favorite images from Haiti...

I want to take my kids back. I know some would say that is too dangerous. But what would happen if they had a global perspective early on? How could we change the social injustice of the world? It took me 30 years to get to this point, we could begin to really live out what we believe in if we can teach our own kids and expose them to it... let them be changed early on...? Now that would be dangerous.

What is equally dangerous is being confronted with a big old mirror - that kind that makes you look fat and unattractive and yet is the real mirror. And I'm trying to face some of what I see in me... like thoughts on success and poverty and sacrifice and selfishness.

How do we measure success on a short trip like this? Is it the number of children fed? The amount of houses rebuilt? The level of health care given? Do we set out our attainable goals and meet them to count the financial sacrifice a trip like this takes all worth it? How do we measure that?

What does poor mean??? God's economy is not ours. Ours is upside down. They may be poor in finances, but they are rich in His kingdom. We are in the top 1% of the world's wealthiest people, if you make more than $10,000 a year.

The need for water is so crucial that they would walk miles for it, travel all over do anything for it... Jesus is the living water for our souls and we have access to him and straight ignore him.

We have the word of God in our houses, our churches, our computers and phones, they may have one or 2 copies in a community and yet their thirst is deeper.

Worms infect about 800 million school age children worldwide-simply by drinking or stepping into contaminated water or eating food prepared by someone who didn't wash their hands first. Infected children become malnourished and grow sicker and weaker with each passing week. They become physically and intellectually stunted, and many die. Those parasites steal their nourishment, but what parasites are stealing ours? I realized I have a lot of parasites in my life. TV, internet, selfish ambitions, the pursuit of happiness. When I was in Haiti and was an unplugged technophile, I felt more myself and more peaceful than I had in a long time. I felt more in tune with God than I had in a long time. I had more time to read my Word, more time to spend in true community with the little group that went. More focus.

It is easy to say that I had a spiritual mountaintop experience in those mountains. It is easy to look at a trip like this and think, "Well, of course you were connected with god. You saw amazing things. You didn't have the responsibilities we have here at home." You know what? I put those things on myself here at home. Kids in poverty don't know any better how to protect themselves from parasites that will destroy them, and yet I know full well what is eating away at my spiritual body. Living in full recognition of who Jesus is and what he has done for me and yet I choose to return to the dirty water wells over and over and over. I know Pete is going to return from Africa on Wednesday with images of children who are malnourished and stunted in growth... and yet that is what I am! The mirror of Haiti showed me that under my fat, healthy American body is a soul that is in need of nourishment. A life lived in comfort is stunting my growth. The complexity and technology of my advanced culture is destroying the simplicity of the life he calls me to lead.

Let me share with you a little obscure verse from Prov 30.

"Two things I ask of you, O LORD;

do not refuse me before I die:

Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread.

Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

and say, 'Who is the LORD ?'

Or I may become poor and steal,

and so dishonor the name of my God.

This guy Agur who wrote this is cautious of 2 extremes. He wants to keep lies away from him and live in truth. He asks God not to give him too much riches so he is not tempted to think he doesn't need God (Hello, America?) and yet he also asks God not to give him poverty so he doesn't get tempted to steal and dishonor the name of God. What he asks for is only his daily bread. Just enough to live day to day. Just enough to know it is from God and praise Him for it. Sounds like Jesus knew this Proverb when he prayed what we now call the Lord's prayer... give us this day our daily bread. Are we living daily? Are we eating the bread of His Word daily?

Have we bought the lie close to us that the pursuit of happiness will give us life?

If know you are drinking from broken cisterns, returning over and over again to the water that kills you, allowing parasites in your life to eat away at your spiritually would come face to face with the mirror. I want to pray that God would come change us. That HE would be our source. That we would find our riches in HIM alone.

Matthew 16:24 - And Jesus Said to his disciples, if any one would come after me, he must deny himself, pick up his cross and follow after me.

I ended that night of speaking with one of my favorite Willet songs "Carry the Cross" based off of the Thomas à Kempis quote

"Jesus now has many lovers of His heavenly kingdom, but few bearers of His cross."

Here are the lyrics:

I WANT TO BE A BEARER OF YOUR CROSS

NOT JUST A LOVER OF YOUR KINGDOM, NOT JUST A LOVER OF YOUR KINGDOM

I WANT TO BE A BEARER OF YOUR CROSS

NOT JUST A LOVER OF YOUR KINGDOM, NOT JUST A LOVER OF YOUR KINGDOM

JESUS, YOU BORE THE PAIN FOR ME

JESUS, YOU TOOK THE NAILS IN YOUR HANDS AND YOUR FEET

SO I WILL / CARRY THE CROSS

SO I WILL / CARRY THE CROSS

AND EVEN THOUGH THE STORMS MAY COME

AND I'LL STUMBLE DOWN THIS ROAD I'M ON

I'LL CARRY THE CROSS / BECAUSE YOU CARRIED ME THROUGH IT ALL

Listen to the song here (track 8)

NEXT POST: IMAGES!!!!!