Aug 15, 2012 | The Good Word
Hey friends — sorry I haven’t announced the giveaway winner yet! I got a little swamped with some exciting work I’ll be telling you about soon — but I’ll be back to announce the winner — and another giveaway…hopefully tomorrow! xoxo
We are trusting God for a lot of reasons right now. We’re starting a new business and praying it gets off the ground and provides us with the income we need. A third child will be joining our family in November, and we are trusting we will have what we need to welcome her — both in the physical sense, and in the sense of needing the expanded capacity to parent and love and teach and train three children. We’ll need a bigger car, too.
I’ve been reading the description of how the Temple was built by Solomon, as the Bible tells the story of his beginnings as the king of Israel in 2 Chronicles. I’ve been reading the New Living Translation this time ’round, and it has brought fresh life to the words and helped me better picture things in my mind — the wings of the cherubim in the Most Holy Place that were each 7 1/2 feet wide stood out to me this time. I could somehow visualize with new clarity these other-worldly and remarkable figures presiding over the Ark of the Covenant, each with a wingspan of 15 feet — touching at the center, stretching toward the walls of this sacred room, and with a combined wingspan of 30 feet, they must’ve brought such a glorious weight to the space, as they touched the Temple walls on either side.
That’s some serious interior design.
At the end of 2 Chronicles 3, there’s also this brief mention of two pillars at the Temple entrance:
Then he [Solomon] set up the two pillars at the entrance of the Temple, one to the south of the entrance and the other to the north. He named the one on the south Jakin, and the one on the north Boaz. {2 Chron. 3:17}
Taking a moment to find out what these names mean and why Solomon — who had already asked for and received wisdom from God — had chosen them, I discovered that Jakin probably means “he establishes” and Boaz, “in him is strength.”
And the glorious picture of our humble efforts, interacting with the glorious presence that once sat between those magnificent wings, became just a little bit clearer.
We have the privilege of having a part to play in the efforts to see God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, for somehow in His infinite wisdom, God saw it fit to create the world this way. And our lives will naturally be full of times when we have work to do in order to achieve any goal — for an Olympic victory or the successful launch of a business, effective parenting or a flourishing kitchen.
But still it is God who establishes these efforts. The God of heaven and earth is intimately acquainted with the companies that will make the Fortune 500 next year, and it is by His hand that all things rise and fall. The way Colossians 1:17 explains it, He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.
Psalm 90:17 says May the favor of the Lord rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us — yes, establish the work of our hands.
And the strength that we need to carry out our work on the earth? That comes from Him too.
Isaiah 40:29 : He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.
Isaiah 26:4 :Trust in the Lord forever, for in YAH, the Lord, is everlasting strength.
So these pillars, standing at the entrance to the Temple, the place where the presence of the Lord would dwell and men would come and make great efforts, give many sacrifices and hope to be pleasing to God, these pillars were reminders that really it is all for Him and to Him and by Him and through Him — we will make our efforts, but it is God who establishes. We will try to work, but it’s God who gives us strength.
And I needed that reminder this morning, thinking about all the things we are hoping to do, hoping to achieve, hoping to decide about, hoping to accomplish — the strength for whatever is ahead of us will come from Him, and if He wills for our work to be established, then so it shall be.
From beginning to end, it’s all in His hands. And that’s an encouraging thought.
xCC
Aug 11, 2012 | Guest Posts, Hometastic Goodness
Not too many years ago I was pretty much the worst eater. Ever. I made really bad food choices, very rarely ate any fresh fruit or veggies (salad was a personal nemesis), fast food was a rather regular occurrence in my diet, and the things that counted as a serving of ‘vegetables’ on my plate were… let’s just say pretty ridiculous.
An important conversation with the Hubs took place when we were dating, and, although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was the start of a personal Renaissance that got me asking questions like — how can I do it myself? Cook it from scratch? Make it without putting rubbish in it or instead of buying it? And having an old friend visiting a couple of weeks ago helped me realize just how far I’d come.
{You know the DIY Granola made the list!!}
I’m sharing about that important conversation, along with a list of Se7en + 1 of my Homemade Favourites, over at Se7en’s site today. {Remember Se7en {and the Travelling Tuesday from when we visited her in the Cape}? She’s the awesome homeschooling mom of Se7en + 1 … meaning EIGHT … kids, who lives back in beautiful South Africa.} She has Guest Bloggers join the fun at her site on her Blogoversary each year, and what a treat to get to guest post there!
My guest post is up and running… but before you click right here to go read it, don’t forget to take a moment to put your thinking cap on for thirty seconds, come up with a name for our Senior Portraits, and perhaps win a free 8 x 10 canvas from Quiver Tree Photography… our photo or yours! {Click here to visit the giveaway post!}
I hope you enjoy the visit with Se7en, and start thinking about your favourite Olympic moment, because we’ll have another giveaway right here, soon!
xCC
Aug 8, 2012 | Giveaways, Quiver Tree Photography
Hey guys and gals! Are you back from world-changing adventures because you now believe you can change the world? I hope so! I’ve got a few updates for you that might not change the world but they may at least change your day. Maywhobiddyhaps. But for starters, let me mention that I made a Smokin’ Sausage Quinoa for dinner this evening and I took pictures, as I was thinking of sharing the recipe with you later. Would you like the recipe? Lemme know.
{This post is the start of a few giveaways that will be coming your way over the next several days… so let me just mention that now so that you check back this week and next to see what else you can win!}
{I already showed you this picture in this post about the shoot with the last Giveaway Winners the other day…but man, I just love it!}
Up next on the docket, I want to mention that Quiver Tree Photography is launching our Senior Sessions Package. It is totally awesome and has lots of bells and whistles. (Where does that expression come from?) Basically for $300, the fantabulous seniors in question will get:
- A 2 hour photo session (with the Hero Hubs, of course)
- Multiple Outfit Changes and at least two locations
- A disc of images with printing rights with a minimum of 80 awesome edited photos from the shoot
- AND. A 20 page custom hardcover photo book with images from their session OR a 16 x 20 gallery wrapped canvas print.
Seniors also have the choice of going with an a la carte option — I’ll have those details up on the Quiver Tree site soon, but the basics include choosing from:
- 2 hr photo session @ $150
- Images on Disc with printing rights @ $150
- Custom Hardcover Photo Book @ $100
- 16 x 20 Gallery-Wrapped Canvas Print @ $100
- Prints and Canvases a la carte, as priced at Quiver Tree. (i.e., 4 x 6 print @ $4.00…)
Sounds good, right? We just have one little problem. That fantastic senior session package described above needs a fantastic name. And this is where you come in. I know I’m usually pretty good with words, but this pregnancy gig and all our hard work starting this business are taking a toll on my sleep patterns. My brain function, she is a tad bit low. So.
Let me first pause to mention in case any of you folks from outside of the USA are wondering what I’m talking about — it’s common around these parts for young folks to have a series of professional photographs taken to commemorate this special moment in their lives, their last (Senior) year of high school. So, not Senior Citizens…although they’re welcome, too. Now that that’s clear…
I’d like to ask you fantastically clever people to put on your thinking caps and come up with a name for Quiver Tree’s new Senior Session Package.
We’ll give you until Saturday night, August 11th at 12:00 midnight to work your wordsmith magic. If you come up with more than one name that you think is a winner, feel free to leave more than one comment. If more than one commenter comes up with the same name, we’ll have to award the prize to the winner who left the comment first. Y’all play nice.
All my ideas so far have words like “Epic” and “Gladiator” in them. But they’re just not… the one.
The person whose name is chosen as THE name for Quiver Tree’s Senior Session Package will have a choice (don’t you love it when you win something and you get a choice about what you won?) between an 8 x 10 canvas print of any image from Quiver Tree’s Fine Art Collection {which basically includes just about every pretty picture you’ve ever seen on this website, or on the Hubs’ site} OR you can attend Quiver Tree’s first Photography Workshop (details below) for just $35! That’s half price…how cool is that?
We’re looking for a name that will appeal to rising seniors (and their parents??)… something fresh and edgy. So leave a comment when you come up with the magic!
Okay. There are two more details to cover in what is becoming a rather lengthy post! I need cookies and milk and sleep!
Quiver Tree Photography Workshop :: Introduction to Digital Photography
Our first Introduction to Digital Photography workshop will be starting here in wee Washington at the beginning of September! These are the details:
The course will introduce the fundamentals of exposure and composition, and you’ll learn practical tips and techniques that will improve the outcome every time you pick up your camera. Topics covered will include:
+ camera controls & settings
+ basic composition techniques for taking better pictures
+ understanding aperture
+ shutter speed & ISO
+ metering basics & exposure
There will be time for Q & A at every session, and the cost for the course is $70. (You will get $10 off the price of the course if you invite a friend who also signs up for this workshop!)
Our first workshop will run for two hours per session on two consecutive Tuesday evenings in September – the 4th and the 11th. There will also be a full-on four hour session which will cover the same material on Saturday, September the 8th from 8:30 pm to 12:30 pm. And y’all know I’ll bake something tasty for the attendees.
If you have any questions about this, please feel free to leave a comment and I will get back in touch with you! Now the last detail to cover is…
Quiver Tree Photography’s {Awesometastic} Referral Program
I cannot for the life of me remember whether I’ve mentioned this to you guys before, but we are very keen to get the word out about our photography business. And I believe in the power of word-of-mouth more than just about anything. You know what I mean. So, we consistently want to say thank you to the people who are helping spread the word — in a tangible way. Here’s how we do it:
- If you refer someone who books a regular photo session with us (family, children, maternity or newborn) you’ll get $10 in Quiver Tree booty. {description below}
- If you refer someone who books a Senior Session {awesome name to be announced} with Quiver Tree, you’ll earn yourself $20 in Quiver Tree booty.
- If you refer someone who books a wedding package with Quiver Tree, you will have just pillaged and plundered your way to $100 buckaroos of Quiver Tree booty.
Here are the multiple ways you can cash in on Quiver Tree booty:
- Use it toward the price of a photo session of any kind.
- Use it to purchase something from the Quiver Tree Gallery located at 158 W. Main Street in Washington, NC.
- Use it toward a Quiver Tree Photography workshop.
- Use it toward the purchase of a print or a gallery-wrapped canvas print — your photo or ours!
So that’s how our referral program works! Just make sure the person who’s booking lets us know that YOU referred them to us. We are so thankful for you — many of you have encouraged us every step of the way as we’ve launched into this new adventure. You already know I’d give you all a heap of freebies if I could do it and we’d still be able to pay the bills! Love you!
There’s more to come on this subject, and some giveaways around the corner… but for now, let the Senior Session naming begin!
xCC
Aug 7, 2012 | Guest Posts, The Good Word
Hi friends! I try not to make it a habit of always linking up to anything and everything I ever write anywhere else on these here internets, but there’s a post up over at Signposts I wanted to make sure I mention to you. (How do you feel about that? Would you rather I always link places?) Part of the magic of this post (in my opinion) is that it’s drawing some quality truth out of sort of mundane section of a tough to read section of the Bible — I Chronicles. Yikes!
All joking aside, I’d love for you to take in this simple encouragement today — in a lesson from the life of David and his generation, recognizing how one person can actually change the shape of a nation, and why you can be that one person who is the catalyst for change.
If you’re a little dissatisfied with the world around you, or even if you just need a reminder that you truly were created for greatness, I hope you’ll click over, and get inspired to be brave!
You are awesome!
xCC
Aug 6, 2012 | Hometastic Goodness, The Good Word
If you haven’t been introduced to the mildly addictive online world of Pinterest, I’m kind of happy for you. But you’ll need a little backstory for any of the rest of this to make sense. And I think it’ll still be valuable, so hang wid me. Pinterest is basically a very simple way of sharing different things you find and like while browsing these here interwebs, where you ‘Pin’ pictorial links of favourite outfits, paint colours, recipes, arts and crafts ideas, amusing ecards you want to laugh at again later, and so on. And on. And on.
Your links are arranged into nifty little pin boards, organised with titles like “Yummy Recipes to Try” or “I Looooove this Outfit” or “Dream Home” or “Baby’s Nursery Inspiration.” And, kind of like Facebook, people follow each other in order to see what the other person has pinned so that they can like it or repin it, or, for the adventurous types, actually go to the website where the information came from to find out more.
You might think of it as a web gathering for a lot of people who are perhaps already living the dream, but just want to live the dream even dreamier.
{This could quite possibly be the most ironic pin on Pinterest. If it gets pinned.}
Alongside the creative inspiration, I’ve been enjoying the useful, organizational side of Pinterest for some time now. When the Hubs said ‘The Gallery is Going to be Your Baby‘ I promptly started a pinboard on Pinterest and began collecting ideas and inspiration wherever I could find them. And that turned out pretty well.
But for the average every day gal whose job isn’t decorating or even blogging about decorating, while Pinterest has come through on a number of occasions, on the whole, I’m not sure I ought to spend too much time there.
Cos here’s the thing. Let’s say I find something on Pinterest that I think is super-cute, and I love the inspiration and I therefore have to pin it. There are kind of three options. (For me anyway.)
1. I get excited because I can try it. And then hopefully I do. Yay.
2. I feel bummed because I can’t try it. It involves painting furniture. Or recipes that have ridiculously expensive ingredients. And I don’t own the house I live in, or even the furniture we live on. And my grocery budget won’t accommodate the purchase of six items that are each at least five bucks and will only be used for this one recipe which could rock or be rubbish. So maybe next month. Next year?
3. I pin something, but I see the ‘pin’ as an unattainable / unachievable goal I’ll never reach. You can probably guess what these types of pins are. Gorgeous DIY kitchen island projects for an island that would literally take up my entire kitchen. Living rooms that look like they’ve come out of a magazine because they actually have come out of a magazine, where half the items I love from the room are a) within arm’s reach for toddler paws and breakable or b) so expensive by the time I saved up to buy them they’d be out of style or c) so completely impractical that if I did save up to purchase everything to make my room like that room, I would immediately feel insanely guilty because I am more personally aware than the average American of what people in poverty live like and how that one piece of furniture could probably feed a family of four for a year. And change.
It’s not always about a house or furniture or food — I’m just kind of giving you an idea. And it sometimes sparks creativity and I come up with a way of doing something for close to $0 and get similar results and then I feel #awesome.
But herein, we find the heart of the struggle: Because I’d roughly estimate that 87% of the things that I pin on Pinterest fall into categories two and/or three, pinning usually makes me discontent, which is not a great choice for how to spend my time.
I don’t really want to be a dreamer. I want to be a doer. So if I spend time dreaming about perfect ways to fix my hair or awesome ways of creating world maps to decorate my boys’ room, well then I better spend some time doing those things, or I’m just wasting time…right?
What I see in my heart, I struggle with. I struggle because I am not content with the home we live in. The furniture’s not mine and we have a mild insect issue and there is only one drawer in the entire kitchen. Bugs. And one drawer. And then, I struggle because in remote villages on the Yucatan Peninsula, I have seen people live in huts made of long branches, wired and held together by who-knows-what and covered with thatched roofs. And they’ve proudly invited me in with a smile on their faces. Chasing their chickens outside and welcoming me in. With Joy.
And I looked this girl in the eyes, this one child in a shack in a township outside Cape Town. And I thought — couldn’t that have been me? And why wasn’t that me? And what was it Bono said about how Where You Live Should Not Decide Whether You Live or Whether You Die?
I left South Africa less than a year ago — I left Mexico exactly ten years ago — but… have they left me?
I’d really like to tie all these thoughts together with a pink polka-dotted ribbon {you know, in honour of our recent gender news!} but to do so would be to gloss over a truth that I am struggling to navigate — a month away from being back here in the US for a full year.
Am I now overly focused on making my happy North-American life even more happy and — dare I say it — comfortable? Could this frivolous escape cause me to forget the fact that I’m actually ridiculously fortunate and that there is so much I can do to make the world we live in a better place?
And will I stand before the throne one day, sorry I spent so much time on my hair?
Today I read this really encouraging post about why we need to struggle. (Remember Kristen from We Are That Family who collected shoes for SFSA in 2010?) I’m encouraged that this struggling is healthy and good.
Jesus blessed those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. He never said we were going to get it all right, but I think He was saying it pleased Him to see us hungry to try. So how do I balance making my home a comfortable place for my family to live in while still managing to be a generous and cheerful giver? And Jesus, should I stop pining (and pinning? funny those words are so similar) for things… especially if I see that it’s 9 pm and I haven’t opened my Bible today?
Is it possible I’m signing up for a daily dose of discontentment?
And where is the small gate? Where is the narrow road? Which boys’ room world map will show me how to get there?
I wish there were seven steps I could copy and paste right here for you that would clearly lay out the answers, but I don’t think there’s one right way for all of us, a one-size-fits-most solution. Rather it involves each of us, in our own ways, hungering for God and for godliness, and asking for His help to figure out what that’s supposed to look like in our day to day lives. And in our cars, homes, nurseries, and kitchens big and small.
Because even if we don’t get it all right, if our hearts are changed and our minds are transformed and we do make a difference in the world around us in the process of the trying — all of that is an outcome that’s glorious.
Are you on Pinterest? Do you think it makes you discontent with what you have? A little?
xCC
P.S. This post from Ann Voskamp also speaks to this struggle — in volumes and with wisdom, as if she’d been reading words from my heart. I just feel like I link to her every day so I’m trying to slow down. 🙂
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