What goes around...

I was just sitting here thinking how some events have played out in my life the past few years, and how it's funny how God works in round-a-bout ways.

The initial thought stemmed from telling my mom at dinner at how yesterday was the non-anniversary of my non-wedding to an ex. In a nutshell, I had met him on March 11, 2005, and in within months, we were so crazy in love that we were planning a wedding for our one-year anniversary of knowing each other on March 11, 2006. We were never officially engaged, but when he took me ring shopping, the girl in me started exploring everything wedding related. Up until that point, I was never one of these girls who dreamed of their dream wedding their whole life. But as I began my research, I became fascinated with discovering all these cool photographers and videographers out there. I even got so inspired as to make my ex a cheezy lovey dovey video to Keith Urban's "Better Half". That summer though, I realized, he wasn't actually my better half, and things eventually dissolved and we went our separate ways. But I was left still fascinated by the wedding industry and all the creative media it held with in.

Later that year, I entered the phase where my girlfriends all started getting married, and because they already had photographers, I thought it would be fun to film their weddings and start getting paid for making cheezy lovey dovey movies of other couples. But after a year of pursuing videography, I continued to be even more fascinated with the photographers I was meeting along the way and realized, my heart and true passion actually belonged in photography, not videography.

So here I am today, March 2008, a photographer, who shoots other people's weddings. Sure, back then, it wasn't my time to get married yet, but it took planting that desire in my heart to open my eyes up to a world of new career possibilities. And though I haven't met yet the man of my dreams, it is exciting to be living each day in the career of my dreams. Ironically enough, I found out (through theknot.com where you can look up grooms names... eh, ex-boyfriend's names), that a year and a half after we broke up, he was already married to someone else. So as hard as that break up was at the time, it was nice to know that I did the right thing in letting him go because he was able to go on to find the true girl God had been preparing for him. And because he let me go, I was able to maximize the creative gifts God had already given me and was anxiously waiting to bring to fruition in a season of singleness.

There are a lot of things currently swirling around me that I'm trying to understand God's purpose in it, so all of the above was a random reflection that I thought I would share. I've learned to become so thankful for the moments when He gives us glimpses into understanding finally why we had to go through things that we didn't understand at the time. As Amy, the bride in my last engagement session, said so wisely, "I have learned that when pain carves a deep place in your heart, God's love can run deeper." That quote has really stuck to me all week.

If there's something you too are struggling with, cling to the truth that God is still writing your life story. Right now is only a transitional chapter.

Good things are waiting for you. Expect them.