Life Exposed

Hello Friends!

It's been awhile! This week has started out a great week. I figured (after a phone call from my mother-in-law this evening telling me she missed my posts :) that I should update everyone on the things that have been going on lately! Not sure how many people will read this since I no longer have Facebook (one of the new things!) but I will write just because I need to!

This week has been good. Ask me a few weeks ago and I would not have this positive attitude. In fact, things have been quite rough lately for our family. I have definitely refrained from whining as so many people have much bigger issues going on in their lives. But God has been teaching us a lot lately, and sometimes being taught is not a fun thing..

Most of you know that my husband has been employed by U.S. Cellular for the past two and a half, almost three years. Although we were thankful for the job, it was not good on our family. The insane hours and Justin literally not being home at all, or on weekends and having to go in on his days off, the stress of the job etc., wore on us. But, he stuck with it, working for the Lord not for people and working to the best of his ability. My husband is the strongest person I know. I'm not sure how many people could work with the public and their cell phones. People are nuts! There's a lot I'd like to say, but we will just keep going with that Justin was let go from the company at the beginning of the month. (Ask me about details in person if you'd like to know more, but for reasons I cannot yet explain I cannot write about things publicly.) Stress set in for me as he is our main source of income as well as insurance. We now had a sweet daughter to think of. Luckily, I'm still insured under my mom until I'm 26. It was Justin and Quinn we had to worry about. It's a scary thing to be without insurance. We really didn't have many bright options for jobs opening up either, so it was just a waiting game. Honestly, the stress of whether Justin was going to get to stay there or not from month to month was just scary. It's been a long road. We knew God had a plan but it was so hard to see. On top of that, I felt awhile back that God was telling me I should expand the business into a new studio so I could do more. I felt like my dream needed to be put on hold as it was not a good time for another expense that needed to go towards other things. With all of this, and much more, my depression set into place heavily. You see, I always have to live with my depression. I know people don't, and never will understand it. I don't expect them to and hope they never have to experience it first hand or watch someone close to them experience it. It is scary. I shut myself out from the world during this time. I laid in bed a lot of days. Everything hurt. I literally laid in bed one night when I finally broke (I never cry, at all) and I kept saying over and over "It hurts, it hurts" as I bawled my eyes out. I'm thankful I still had the hope of God in this very dark time even though I felt like He was far away or dim. He was holding me through the entire thing, otherwise I don't know where I'd be right now. I kept reading my "Jesus Calling" book every day even when I didn't want to or didn't believe God's promises I was reading. I couldn't see the light at the end of this dark tunnel....

Luckily after a couple of weeks of this terrible thing consuming my life, I asked the Lord as I woke up each morning to help me through the day little by little. My book kept telling me to take one step at a time and one day at a time so it's what I started to do. Though my depression is always there, I have to watch what triggers it and I have to make sure I keep my eyes 100% fixed on Jesus. I learned to be positive and know that He had a plan for us. And as soon as I believed that, my stresses were lifted. These past couple of weeks I haven't been stressed. I got rid of one of my main triggers--Facebook. During that deep depression, Facebook wasn't helping. I wanted to post negative statuses. I wanted to go on and on about our situation. I wanted people to know. I begged for people to care. I compared myself to people. I compared our baby to what other people's babies were doing before ours. I compared my photography. I got upset when I saw someone go elsewhere. So I got rid of it. And I have to say I haven't looked back yet. It may have been an angry impulse at the time, but it was a good decision. I haven't missed it one bit and I figure the people that really want to keep up with me will, and the ones I really want to keep up with I will do the same. I have had more personal phone calls, emails, texts and visits to my close friends and family than I have ever made before. It's been almost a month and it's been good! It's not to say that I won't ever have it back someday. I haven't decided. But for now this is what I need. I just hope people keep me updated and tell me things so I don't miss it.

And onto what's going on now. After lots of applications, interviews, searching, hoping and praying, God brought just the right job to Justin as we were least expecting it. A sales position at Pro-tech opened up just this week at just the right time and Justin and I are happy to say that he has accepted the position and will be the new salesman in the Schuyler Co area where he grew up. He is placed in a job where he can play off of one of his biggest strengths--people skills! He loves people and helping people. We are so excited about this new journey.

On top of that, there may be some options opening up for me and my business soon that I am very excited to share about but can't until all of the details are into place. I'm hoping to know for sure very soon. Please be in prayer. God is good and has just the right plan in just the right timing. HIS timing. What an amazing God we serve.

It was so unreal that last night my Jesus Calling devotion hit on the joy I was feeling.

"When you entrust the details of your life to Me, you are surprised by how thoroughly I answer your petitions....Best of all your faith is strengthened as you see how precisely I respond to your specific prayers. I delight showering blessings on My beloved children. Come to Me with open hands and heart, ready to receive all I have for you." SPOT ON.

My friend Megan and I with Emerson!

Last week one of my beautiful close friends, Megan, had her new baby boy! As her gift, I traveled there to go see them and do his newborn pictures when he was just six days old. I am so thankful for Megan as God brought her into my life just a couple of years ago just when I needed someone like her in my life. We have only met in person twice (this newborn session counting as one of them), but we talk daily and I feel like I've known her my entire life! She lives in Plattsburg which is around three hours away from me close to Kansas City. I had such a great relaxing day traveling and getting to see her and the pictures are so cute! She took a couple of behind the scenes ones for me. When I was finished, I decided since I was traveling through Cameron (a town one of my other friends lives in), I'd stop and surprise my friend Amanda! I told her as soon as I got there "I'm seriously not usually one of these people. I HATE when people stop in on me when I'm not ready, but I didn't want you to know I was coming!" She was so surprised and we had a nice quick visit before I had to head home. I finally got to meet her little boy, Crue, who is just 2 months younger than Quinn.

Onto Quinn. That little girl lights up my entire life. The beginning of last week was a rough few days for her. One of her top teeth was trying to pop through and it was terrible for her! So clinging and whiney and so far from herself. Wednesday when it finally popped through she was 100% better! Our happy little girl was back. Teething is terrible! She's working on getting the other top tooth now, making that number 4! She hasn't been cranky about it yet so it must not been too painfully close yet. This week Quinn learned to wave bye-bye. I seriously melt every time I see her do it. It is the cutest little thing!! She's growing way too fast but I'm loving every minute of watching her learn. She's soaking everything up like a sponge now. She is still not crawling. She gets on her hands and knees and rocks back and forth and can also plank, but no going forward. She's mastered scooting backwards though! Enough to where she got herself over to the DVD rack and pulled them off of the shelf. Of course we videotaped it instead of stopping her :). She loves to stand. She can stand for a little bit by herself up to the coffee table or couch but can't pull herself up to it yet. I'm already planning her first birthday party. It's going to be pink and gold themed and I already have her outfit. Such a bitter sweet thing to think about!

Tonight was my dad's birthday. We went to see him at work today and ate lunch with him and my grandparents. I gave him his gift which was a photo shoot of Quinn that we did of her "working on a vehicle". I seriously love how they turned out and he thought it was cute. He's the type of person he doesn't want anyone buying him anything so you just do something from the heart and it means way more to him. This evening we got together at my sisters house and had supper together for his birthday. They found out the gender of their third child today and shared the news with us tonight. It's BOY! Although that was my guess I'm still so shocked. After two girls they're having a boy. After three grandgirls in our family there will be a boy! So excited. His picture showing he's a boy cracks us up. There's definitely no denying he's male!

Dad's birthday gift :)

If you read this, I hope you enjoyed catching up with our lives. It's been a roller coaster but life wasn't meant to be easy. We just have to live each day knowing God has a purpose for us each day we are here breathing. Let's make sure we make the most of it?