wrecked.

Story has become extremely important to me over the last year and a half. I believe it started when my work (photographing families) became less of what it was that I loved about it in the first place. I wanted the images I create to represent the love and promise that we have for each other. So, in an effort to do so, my intentions and focus changed. I’ve become observant and analytical and extremely aware of amazing (in my opinion) stories that happen before and around me. In Costa Rica, I asked a lot of questions, I sat on the sidelines and observed. Part of what made my experience so incredible was the ability to not be in the moment, but to be very in the moment (if that makes any sense at all). I wasn’t busy doing the next thing, thinking of what to do in the now, be it running around playing & engaging with kids, helping women and families in the clinic or planting vegetables and building a water line. No, because I was still I was able to take in all of the love swirling around, being poured out into people. I feel blessed to see and feel God working in and around and through.

It’s been a week since I returned from Costa Rica. Nothing and everything is the same. Nothing on the inside of me, in my heart of hearts. And everything on the outside of me where the world goes ’round. I know it probably sounds confusing if your world has never shifted. I never expected my world to shift and change and I never expected my heart to be wrecked. I, for some reason, had the intention that this was just a job, that I was just documenting it. I suppose that I somehow forgot the part about intending to capture the story.

A good friend told me this is an emotional response. Such a good term and way to pick it apart. An emotional response to something that’s awakened inside of me, to something I felt that was very real and to something I feel but is just reaction and emotion and not real at all. (note, I like run-on sentences…) I think a big fear I have is feeling as if Costa Rica may slip through and away from me, similar to a dream. I’m afraid I will wake up one day and not feel what I’ve felt for the last two weeks. I’m afraid that it will all be for nothing and I want to hold it in my hands as something palpable. Because palpable always seems easier to nurture and keep safe. Thoughts and memories slip in and out often.

And all of this is not to say that I don’t love and am not grateful for the life and love I experience now, day to day. My husband and my children, my life, my church. These are the things I am blessed to have now, to live with and love with now. I know in my head that all of this experience can’t be for nothing. Perhaps it’s just a beginning, perhaps it needs time to grow and become whatever God intended it to be for me. I’m beginning to wonder if this shift and heartache and overload of love is part of what causes vision to come. Life-dreams of what could be, what change can happen, growing hearts. Not dreams that are half-hearted, but visions with plans and persistence. My stumbling block is that I am not a patient person. I don’t want to wait. I am ready for it to happen, for it to begin. And then, yet again, a quiet voice whispers to me that it’s begun. It’s happening.