a seed

so if you have had a heart-to-heart with me recently, then you know that I really have been trying to figure out what God wants me to "do" with all of my "life experiences" that I have had over the past several years. From infertility, to emergency C-section with Emma, miscarriages, high risk pregnancy, neonatal, multiples - you name it and I have had a BRIEF time with lots of OB related issues. And I say "brief" because I am fully aware and very thankful that while I did experience those things, each was only for a relatively short time {except that multiples part - that one stuck!!}. And I truly do not think that God would "put me through all of that" to serve no purpose. SO, I have prayed and prayed and prayed that He would show me what His "will" is for me.

And then I became obsessed with my camera and sometimes think about changing my last name to "Nikon". Wait......anyway, I told my mom the other day that something that I would love to do, LOVE TO DO, would be to take pictures for parents in the neonatal, put together a slideshow and give them a "CD" of their prints for free. Because when you are in the thick of a neonatal experience, the last thing you are worried about are capturing those "moments" with your camera - all you want to do is to get your hands on your baby and hold her for as long as your visit. But I'm no dummy and I know that this would never happen with HIPAA and hospital yuck and privacy issues - just not realistic. And now I have just started to question why in the world am I so concerned with learning how to take professional pictures when I have zero desire to be a professional children's photographer - it makes no sense!!??!!

BUT THEN, my teacher said something that made me thankful that I was sitting down because I feel pretty certain that I would have hit the floor. She was encouraging us to get involved in some sort of charity and one that she works with is called "now I lay me down to sleep" and she {and six others} at the request of the child's parents, take pictures of preemies that are not going to make it so that those parents have beautiful pictures to always remember that blessed angel. I KNOW what you are thinking because I am thinking the same thing, I tend to be a basketcase with my emotions and DO I REALLY think that I could walk in and take pictures of a baby that I know is dying {or already has passed on}. That I truly don't know. But this is laying on my heart and the seed has been planted.

When I truly think about it, it makes me nervous that I would be an emotinal wreck, take terrible pictures and there is absolutely no redo on the shoot. But then on the flip side, I think, why not me, someone that went in everyday for monitoring fully expecting to be the one grieving again. So maybe God's gift to me was the "life experience" of a miscarriage loss which then resulted in two healthy children:


AND maybe my "gift" back is a picture to someone that they will treasure for a lifetime. To be continued.............