I’m spending each day here in the month of October writing about finding beauty in the everyday mess.  Before you think I’m an expert on this topic, let me confess: I’ve likely already lost my temper, prayed that I could have a solo vacation, and held back frustrated tears this morning.  I’m far from having this mastered.  I’m writing here transparently so that you and I might grow in seeking His daily extravagant beauty.  So pull up a chair and get ready to dive into the mess with me, knowing that somewhere in this mess is a beauty that only God can craft.

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(Excuse me while I recuperate from Allume.  I am changed… and finding words to express that is harder than it seems… this was written during worship on the 26th… I’m not sure it grasps at the totality of the change… but it’s a start.)

I just want to cup the messy beautiful in my palms.

I want to cradle the joy and the sorrow with the images and words I was placed here to create.

I thought that looked like something specific.

I am not specific.  On any given day my hands hold little hands, stroke my husband’s hair, grasp needle and thread, tangle themselves in yarn, click a shutter or a mouse, grasp a pen, and even hold a spoon at the stove.

I thought I would hunt this beauty entwined with this mess with a lens and a pen.

But I am not that specific.

And these words spoken over me this weekend are speaking strange things to my heart.

Freedom
Exposure
Speaker
Hospitality
Joy
Collaboration
Humanitarian Photojournalism
Hard Stories

These words are specific and varied.

Quietly loud.

11 months ago I wrote on my God Sized Dream Team Application that the dream I had was to capture beauty behind a lens.  Specifically: 12 paid sessions for my business. Just writing this down and I was catapulted into this wild dream journey.  I have done 13 paid sessions since I submitted that application.

God has exceeded that written dream. However, the real work has been as He fiddles with the focus of that God-sized Dream to be more about capturing the beauty in so many different ways in the real life messes. And here I am at Allume finding that the dream is far bigger than 12 paid sessions.  I’ve found my core calling of seeking the beautiful right in the middle of the messy.

The dream for more of what God has for me is different.  It’s bigger. It’s growing everyday.

It continues to grow to a size that only God can complete.  And if I will but hold my hand loosely around that dream, He will work out the details and create art through my open hands.

I am messy. I am broken.  I am a recovering people pleaser.  I grow weary. I am filled with sin.

But I am art.

You are art.

You and I are created for a purpose and with a specific core calling that we will complete in 10,000 different ways.  We will co-create with Him in this one messy beautiful life, by His grace.