Our Family's Purpose Statement

We are called to glorify God in all that we say, do and are. We will fulfill this call as a family by pursuing Christ-like character, by creating and sustaining a welcoming home and by reaching out to serve others in mission.

Character

 - Be disciplined in our personal walk with Christ

 - Use our individually unique gifts to serve God and others

 - Encourage and build one another up

 - Exercise humility and be open to learning from others

 - Take care of our bodies as temples of the Holy Spirit

Home

 - Utilize it as an active picture of Christ and the Church

 - Use it to relax, reenergize and prepare to go back out into the world

 - Take care of it so we can open it to serve and welcome others

Mission

 - Ceaselessly preach the Gospel through our words and actions

 - Serve collectively and individually in areas we truly enjoy

 - Be financially wise so we can abundantly bless others

 - Enjoy each other through quality recreational time

I owe the inspiration of this fabulous idea to Tsh Oxenreider, the author of my new favorite book, Organized Simplicity. To all the work-at-home moms out there, this book is for you!!! I highly recommend it for helping you get organized and give you a much more defined sense of purpose in your role as a homemaker.

Before this book, I saw my role as a wife and mom as just that - a role I am called to fill. I now see it as a job. And for every job, the best way to be efficient and get the most out of it is to be organized in a way you can understand. This book addresses exactly how to do that. I am totally a fan.

As for our purpose statement, I am really excited to use this in our everyday life. My goal is to display it on our wall somewhere so whenever we come into scheduling conflicts, tricky financial decisions or vacation planning we can hold them up to this statement and make decisions based on what we are truly all about. I am very excited to raise our family with a clear goal in mind - hung on the wall for us all to see and reflect on. Above all, our family is all about Jesus, but this will give us some more specifics to refer to when life gets confusing.

And then this is where you come in. I wanted to post this on the web so all our friends and family can read this statement... and hold us accountable to it. If you see us acting outside these goals please practice biblical exhortation and let us know where we are failing. Because I know we will... we're human sinners!

Learning to be Blessed

It's funny how we ask for prayer for certain things and then when those prayers are answered we ask for prayer that we can "handle" the blessings that we've been given.

For a long time, Nick and I prayed for him to find a consistent job that provided for our family, was fairly close to where we live and was something he enjoyed. Now that he has a job that is all of those things, I find myself praying that I have patience with him as he works more hours and has to spend a little more time away from our family than before.

I also prayed that my photography business would take off this year. Now that it has, I am constantly praying that I find the time to get everything done around the house as well as finishing up all my photo projects.

Above all, Nick and I have prayed for comfort since we got married. We've prayed for stability. For peace. For the ability to lay down roots and stay in one location for more than six months. And now that we're all cozied up here in Newcastle and have been for quite some time now, I'm feeling restless. Nick and I watched a sermon by Francis Chan last night about suffering. By the end of his thirty-minute talk, all I wanted was a good dose of pain and persecution so I could feel that much closer to Christ. But that's crazy, right? To pray for affliction? I don't know.

I just get tired sometimes of being so blessed. And I know that's a terrible thing to feel. I should be at Jesus' feet, weeping out of gratitude for every moment of my silly little life. Instead, I grow complacent. I get frustrated with the day-to-day routine. I actually want something to complain about. Rather, to grow from. But at the same time, I'm afraid of actually asking for God to give me a trial... because I know that He'll give it to me. And while it may sound glamorous to me right now, I don't think that in reality suffering would be very much fun.

I guess what all this comes down to is I need to learn how to be thankful. I need to learn how to be satisfied with where God has me now and excited to see how He is using this time to grow me, whether I am in a season of suffering or not.

Photo Update: Spring and Summer

Since I have been so terrible about updating this blog, I figured I'd do this in two parts. Here is part one, photography coverage of the last few months.

Here's what's been going on in our lives since Owen started crawling...

We adopted a 1-year-old kitty from MEOW Cat Rescue. His name is Remy.

Nick and I attended a Mariner's game with his family.

Now that Owen is crawling, things have gotten a little busier around the house...

We have a little musician!

It got warm outside, so Owen has spent less time with clothes on :)

Our little man now knows how to feed himself! Finally!

Owen has discovered the great outdoors... and does NOT like the texture of grass on his sensitive skin!

And on July 4th, Owen celebrated his first birthday! Here he is after his party, eating a pickle and thoroughly enjoying himself.