Celebrating Green!

A few weeks ago as I was – yet again – watering my outdoor plants, I found myself beginning to inwardly grumble and complain at how dry everything was.  After weeks and weeks with little to no rain, the grass had gone dormant and the only thing keeping many of my plants from dying were my once or twice a day waterings.  And, quite frankly, I was tired of it.  Tired of watering, tired of looking at dead grass and tired of the dryness all around me.

And then for some unknown reason, I began to really look around.  You know what I saw?  Green!  When I saw my world with different eyes, things didn’t look as bad anymore.

Once my watering was finished I grabbed my camera and went in search of as much green as I could find.  I looked for different textures and shades … different plants and trees.  If it was green, I took a picture of it.  Here is a sampling of what I found…

Growth in the midst of dryness!  Praise Jesus!

Psalm 23:2 … He lets me rest in GREEN meadows; he leads me beside peaceful streams.

What God taught me through a baby bird…

Two weeks ago while trimming some severely overgrown bushes in front of our house, we discovered a bird’s nest.  Upon further examination, we were thrilled to discover that the nest contained three little speckled eggs.

We immediately stopped our trimming and left the nest alone with the hopes that the disruption we had caused wouldn’t affect the eventual hatching of the eggs.  In the meantime, however, I was personally going through a hard time emotionally.  For weeks, I would find myself feeling sad and depressed and although I thought I initially knew the cause, as time went on and I didn’t feel any better, I just couldn’t figure out why I was feeling so out of sorts.  Each day I went through the motions, awaiting the day when I would wake up and feel like myself again.

Meanwhile, several days after we discovered the nest, my husband thought he saw movement inside so we all trekked outside to take a look.  I took along my camera (of course!) and a chair in case I needed to get higher to see inside.  As soon as I climbed up and aimed my camera, this was what greeted me…  Precious, huh?

Photography has been such a gift over the years because it has taught me so much … how to see the world with a different perspective, how to appreciate the little details, how to have confidence in my abilities, how to capture the seemingly insignificant moments in life, etc.  This time, however, God used my love of photography to remind me about his character which eventually brought me out of that period of discouragement.

The following day after capturing the baby birds with my camera for the first time, I sat at my computer and went through each image one-by-one, marveling at the gift of new life and the blessing it was to observe it first hand.  As I looked at and edited the image below, however, I felt God telling me that I needed to mimic the posture of that helpless baby bird.  You see, the bird couldn’t see anything at this point in its young life, however, when it sensed my presence, it immediately lifted it’s head and open it’s mouth anticipating a meal.  The bird trusted that if it’s mouth was opened wide, good things would come.

In the same way, God reminded me that if I, too, would open myself up and trust that good things would come, he would satisfy my needs as well.  And even though I wasn’t even sure what my needs were, he knew!  Sounds simple doesn’t it?  But God also knew that I needed that visual picture of the baby bird’s posture to remind me that God wants to fill my life with good things!  And when I speak of good things, I’m not talking about the material things of this world.  That wasn’t what I wanted and it isn’t what I needed.  For me, “good things” means:  peace, contentment, the reminder of God’s faithfulness, friendship, love, a deeper relationship with God, patience, truth, security in who I am, etc.  Those are the good things that I believe God wants to fill me with.

As cool as that is, the story doesn’t end there.  If it wasn’t enough for God to give me that visual representation of his care for me, he also confirmed the truth through my quiet time the next day.

I am currently working through my second year of reading through the Bible in a year.  I use a daily reading plan to keep me on track which means I don’t choose which passages to read each day – the plan lays it all out ahead of time.  On this particular day, a day after God used the picture of the baby bird to bring me out of my discouragement, one of my assigned chapters was Psalm 81.  I read the first several verses but was stunned when I came to verse 10…

For it was I, the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt.  OPEN YOUR MOUTH WIDE, AND I WILL FILL IT WITH GOOD THINGS (emphasis mine).  I couldn’t believe my eyes!  Open your mouth wide and I will fill it with good things?  Did it really say that?  Those were almost the exact same words God spoke to me when I first looked at the picture of the baby bird and there they were on the page of my Bible!  And further, next to the verse were the words I had written last year when I read that portion of Scripture, “picture a baby bird with it’s mouth open wide, waiting for food from it’s momma.”  Wow!

I’ve been a Christ-follower long enough that I shouldn’t be surprised when things like this happen.  Yet, there I sat … stunned!  Not only had God given me a clear, visual picture of what my relationship with him should look like, he confirmed it nearly word-for-word through Scripture.  I stand amazed!

Now in all honesty, I debated about whether or not to share this experience here in such a public forum.  But when it came down to it, I couldn’t not share it.  Publish his glorious deeds among the nations.  Tell everyone about the amazing things he does.  Psalm 96:3 (And that was part of my assigned reading from yesterday!)

God is alive and active!  God is at work in my heart!  God wants us to trust him!  God is relational!  God is personal!  God wants to fill us with good things!

How can I not share that?

For it was I, the LORD your God, who rescued you from the land of Egypt.  Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it with good things.  Psalm 81:10

[dandelions]

It’s that time of year again.  The dreaded dandelions.  In my opinion, about the only thing they’re good for is photographs!  They may be unsightly in my yard, but through the lens of my camera, the detail can be magical.

[Psalm 104:24] … What a wildly wonderful world, God!  You made it all, with Wisdom at your side, made earth overflow with your wonderful creations. (MSG)

Even dandelions…

iso 250 … f/5.6 … 100 mm

Edited with my favorite “go to” actions from Pure Photoshop Actions (It’s All About the Bling Baby, Lookin’ Sharp Baby, Hazy Baby I)

[Linking up with Deb for This or That Thursday]

A prayer

 

Oh precious Heavenly Father – the Creator of all things – I praise you for the beautiful colors all around me.  I thank you for filling our world with beauty … I thank you for the changing of the seasons.  May I never wish this season away – pining for what was or yearning for what is to come – but let me be fully present right now, right here.  My life is yours.  I trust you.  I desire that my heart for you would continue to grow.  I don’t merely want to be an enthusiastic fan … I choose to follow you.  In good times and bad.  In lack and in plenty.  You are worthy!  You are holy!  You are mercy and grace!  You are love!  Your creation reflects who you are.  Thank you for allowing me to see, enjoy and capture the glorious splendor of your creation.

fall’s splendor.

 

Choosing Joy

I find myself wishing for some kind of different for today.  Joel’s company is moving into their new corporate offices this weekend which means he has to work … a lot.

I saw the following quote on Pinterest yesterday, “Don’t let comparison steal your joy.”

In addition to comparison, there are a lot of joy stealers – discontentment, unmet/unrealistic expectations, selfishness, taking my eyes off the One True source of joy.

Sometimes joy is a choice.

And so today, there is joy to be found in …

Saturday morning pancakes … sleeping in … waking up all snuggled in my new down comforter … a husband’s job that provides for our family and allows me to stay home … three children who are at this present time, playing nicely together … a crisp, clear, blue sky … vibrant fall leaves on the trees and in my yard … sunshine when I was expecting rain … knowing God is in control … trusting God with the bumps in the road … learning, growing, becoming … fall break for my kiddos this week … the anticipation of a family trip to Chicago … being still … encouragement from God’s Word … a freshly mowed lawn … homemade chocolate cake … wonderful neighbor kids for my kids to play with … taking pictures.

My 30 day photography challenge

I am currently in the midst of a 30 day photography challenge.  It’s something I found on Pinterest a few weeks ago and something that I hope will challenge me to think outside of the box a bit when it comes to my pictures.  Initially I hesitated to start the challenge because I’m not really a photo theme sort of girl.  I don’t like to be confined by the boundaries of having to take a picture of a predetermined something.  But this sounded like the type of thing that might get me out of my comfort zone while also giving me the opportunity to try some new things and learn new skills along the way.

Day 1 – Self portrait … Okay, I admit, I pretty much still stayed in my comfort zone for this one.  I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of self portrait I wanted to do, but because I wasn’t coming up with any creative ideas, I settled on the old taking a picture of myself in the bathroom mirror shot.  I know that I’ll have several more opportunities for self portraits before the end of the challenge, I promise to be more creative next time.  On the positive side is the fact that I really like the composition and processing on this one.  And my hair looks good! *wink-wink*

Day 2 – What I wore today … We do not have a full length mirror in our house which made it hard to figure out how I was going to photograph my clothing.  But since I was wearing cute shoes, I decided to focus on them rather than the whole outfit.  My Mary Jane Keens are some of the cutest and most comfortable shoes I own.  Fall is the perfect time to break them out!

Day 3 – Clouds … It was about this time in the challenge where I decided that I needed to commit my daily photo hunt to the Lord.  So I started praying, “Lord, please give me opportunities to find …  Open my eyes to what you would want me to see today.”  I hope to take that approach everyday from this point on with my photography.  Sounds simple, but it was a stepping stone in my journey.  On this particular day, God gave me the most amazing sky to photograph.  I had to take Matthew to school early for chess club and the light and sky was just perfect.  It often is during that magical hour between eight and nine o’clock in the morning.  Unfortunately there aren’t a lot of places for me to pull off the road between our house and the school so I captured this shot while waiting for a red light.  Initially I thought I’d just stand in my yard, point my camera upwards and simply capture the sky.  But that felt too safe.  Too much of what I always do.  So I decided I needed to find some way to capture the sky in a more interesting way.  I think the telephone pole and wires accomplish that.  The other interesting thing about this photo is that had I waited for later in the day to capture clouds, I would’ve been out of luck.  The only time, that day, that there were clouds in the sky was first thing in the morning.  By the time the kids were all in school, the sky was completely clear.  Thank you, Lord, for giving me clouds!

Day 4 – Something green … I spent a good portion of this day looking for something green.  I knew I could always fall back on taking pictures of the grass, trees and bushes in my yard, but that, again, felt too comfortable.  So I looked for something a little more “out of the box.”  In the end, I guess I still ended up taking pictures of trees, but I love that I was able to capture them from a different perspective – through a window.  When I sit at my computer, to the right of me is a wall of windows.  This week, in particular, I have been treated to some pretty spectacular displays of color on the trees.  In fact, looking out those windows has brought me a lot of joy this week as I watched the trees go from green, to light green to yellow and bright orange.

Day 5 – From a high angle … This prompt was actually pretty easy so I took a lot of pictures, but in the end I decided that I liked this picture of my sweet daughter best.  Plus, it was time for a “people picture.”  I like the fact that the focus is on her eyes and more specifically her gorgeous eyelashes.

Day 6 – From a low angle … This prompt was begging me to take pictures of the gorgeous fall colors.  I suppose I could’ve approached the low angle prompt from the aspect of actually getting really low and close to a particular subject (my kids thought it was funny when one night I went out and laid in the driveway to get pictures of all the leaves that have fallen), but I decided instead to interpret the prompt as capturing something above me.  For this shot, I simply stood directly underneath the branches and leaves so I could capture the colors, the sunlight shining through them and the blue sky above.  Love on all accounts!

There’s some tough prompts coming up … a bad habit, childhood memory, yourself with 13 things … but it should be fun to see what I can come up (or rather what God directs me to).  We’re also going to attempt family pictures this weekend.  Should be fun!

Hope you all have a delightful weekend and are able to enjoy all the beautiful things around you!

My date with an insect

Yesterday I was feeling rather uninspired and not at all creative.  I took picture after picture of various things in hopes that something would inspire me.  Eventually I decided to take my camera with my macro lens and take a walk around the yard, thinking there had to be something out there that would get me out of my creative funk.

I headed to the mums first because that’s about the only thing that’s still thriving in my yard.  I snapped a few shots from different angles and was starting to find my groove when I spotted a tiny, green insect.  This had potential.  What I love about my macro lens is the ability I have to get extremely close to my subject and not have to worry about whether it will be able to focus or not.  This little guy was probably smaller than my pinky fingernail, but because I was able to get down low and extremely close, I was able to get some fantastic shots.  And thankfully, he wasn’t camera shy!

I didn’t do much to these shots in the editing process … just made a few slight adjustments in ACR, ran a levels adjustment layer and a high pass filter to sharpen in Elements.  That’s it!  And I’m thrilled with how they came out.  Who knew that a little green bug could be so inspiring?

On a different note, I have a question for all you camera people out there … I’ve been noticing an increased amount of noise in my pictures even at lower ISO’s like 400 … anyone have any idea why that would be?  I shoot with a Rebel xti and have never been able to go above ISO 800 but I’m wondering if the recent increase in noise is just due to wear and age.  My camera is almost four years old.  Any thoughts?  I desperately want a new camera, but we’re trying to hold off a few more months so if anyone has any suggestions that will improve the situation until we can get something else, I’d sure appreciate it!

Have a blessed Tuesday and may you find inspiration in the most unlikely places today!