Faith, Film, and Favorites: A Recap of Project 51

Now faith is confidence in what we hope for, and assurance about what we do not see. -Hebrews 11:1

PIN

Like most of you do this time of year, I always take a second to reflect on the what’s happened the past twelve months. Count the blessings, remember the lessons, make a list of things I want to do better. This year has been substantially different than others, and though I’m always hesitant to be too personal on this blog, I feel like part of our year has become a testimony that may be a bit of inspiration to someone else. I always love reading posts from people who are totally transparent and brave, sharing their struggles as a way to encourage others to get through their own. That being said, I’m borrowing a dose of their courage and sharing a small snippet of how faith has carried me through these past few months, in hopes that it may be something one of you needs to read today. So here it goes.

A year ago, I started a little personal project, documenting my girls each week and picking favorite images to share. It started as a way to exercise decisivness and to stay organized with the yearly pics. Naturally, I started my New Year’s resolution a week late, but Project 51 was born in January and was keeping me on track.

At the start of last summer, I started another little personal project, purchasing a vintage medium format camera and starting the journey of film. I was hooked from the first role I shot, and was excited to learn more-knowing I had a loooong way to go.

As for life in general…

I’d say my husband, Carl, and I both started feeling a little restless right before our summer vacation-the kind of restlessness you can’t put your finger on, especially since everything seems to be going great. Whatever the reason, we couldn’t shake it. Thinking we just needed a getaway, we headed to the beach anxious to relax and reset.

While there, we both read The Power of Starting Something Stupid– the kind of book that made you want to sell everything you owned and travel the world. It brought about all those crazy ideas we had talked about in the past, but for once we were actually ready to do something about those seemingly meaningless chats. So, for the first baby step, we decided we needed to move. Truth be told, though we loved our neighbors, we had fallen out of love with the house quite a while ago, and we knew the “safety” of owning the home was taking away from the entrepreneurial risks we both wanted to take. We were staying because it was the easy thing to do, but we both knew in our hearts that it was time to, well, do something stupid.

So, after lots of prayers and a few moments of almost backing out, we took a leap of faith and put our house on the market three weeks after vacation. We had no plans of where we were actually going to go, but in our hearts we knew we were doing what we were supposed to do. That being said, within three days of putting our house on the market, it went under contract-and the celebration (and crazed search for a new home) began. Life had become exciting in a whole new way, and the adrenaline had kicked in-I was more focused than ever, and my little side projects were still going strong.

And then September happened.

First, an aneurysm was discovered in my sister’s brain. Then, after moving into a new home, the contract on our old one started to fall apart, and it looked as though our stupid idea was actually going to be extremely stupid-and costly. And just when it seemed things couldn’t get more stressful, my sweet grandma suffered a mini stroke.

Let’s just say that I went from being focused to living in a fog, trying hard to keep from having an insane meltdown. I’d never felt so out of control, and the constant feeling of desperation was heavy and paralyzing. Photography became a distant thought, and instead I just focused on holding it together.

But then I looked at Carl in these moments, trusting and calm- and realized that the strength he exudes is indeed a choice. He felt just as out of control as I did, but he didn’t let his emotions take him down a path of despair. And I had the same decision to make: I could spend my nights sobbing and stressing, or, like him, put everything into the hands of the One who has the control.

I’m happy to say I quickly chose the latter. Meditating on Hebrews 11:1 throughout the day, I made the decision to believe that all was going to be okay. I prayed earnestly, with expectation, and stopped even considering the worst outcomes. I let go and let God, and He in turn blessed me with the peace that surpasses all understanding, seeing us through to the other side of the storm-stronger, not broken. Our home sold, and we’ve never been happier than the place we’re in now. My sister was blessed with an incredible team of doctors and recovered remarkably well after a day of brain surgery. My Grandma was well enough to cook a feast for Christmas last week. Thanks be to God would be an understatement.

Amidst all of this, we were also reminded of just how blessed we are to have dear friends and family that supported us throughout this tough time-making us meals, watching our girls, sending encouraging messages just when we needed them. I’ve never felt more gratitude than I do this year, and to those of you who help carried us through, thank you.  I’m starting off 2015 not only counting my blessings twice, but praying that I can find a way to be a blessing to others as you’ve been for us.

And now, in true rambling form (I can’t talk or type any other way), I’m going to loop back where I began to end up this post: those little photography projects. As I mentioned, they were sidelined at first when I went into that fog, but then it’s film that I turned to when I came out of it. In those weeks of turmoil, I didn’t care to exert the energy into using my digital camera-uploading pictures, deleting tons I took just being shutter happy, correcting color-so I dropped the weekly Project 51 post. Instead, I turned to my parents’ old 35mm Minolta camera loaded with rolls of ten year old black and white film to take weekly pictures. There’d be no instant gratification with the pictures: just as I was having to practice patience in waiting within every other area of our life at this time, I did the same with this.

So, here they are, the pictures that emerged from that dark spot in my year. They are technically imperfect (borderline horrible), but I do love them so. For their authenticitiy. For their lack of clarity. For their grittiness. For their ability to help me see past the surface to hold on to that memory of a time when all was seemingly falling around us, and yet there was life to be lived and joy to be had.

As for 2015 projects? I’m going to try to start on time and start another year of weekly pictures, calling it -drumroll- Project 52. But it’ll all be in film and probably posted weeks too late. And now that Carl and I have checked off the first thing on our list of stupid things to do, there are a few others I have up my sleeve for this little business and am excited to share soon. All in all, I’m throwing caution to the wind and living on faith, praying that you, too, may face your new year in the same way.

PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN
PIN