For some time, I have been praying for a revelation of my true purpose in life. I am a thirty-something year old divorced, single mom of 2 children who are simply amazing (and I'm not the only person who thinks so). I have a great job but I don't look at it as a lifelong career. As a result, it's hard for me to give it 100% of my effort for any reason other than I need that biweekly paycheck. I have been asked to set professional goals to achieve over the coming year, which I did, but I'm not excited about them In fact, in some ways I'm dreading having to put in the work to accomplish them.
Surely there is more to life than this! This thought has popped up in my mind so many times over the past few years. I can't help but be envious of people who genuinely love their job. Those people that have always wanted to be a (fill in the blank) and have worked so hard to make it happen. Now they don't even feel like they're working because they are doing what they love. That's not my testimony, as much as I would love it to be. I pretty much fell into my career, and I have been very blessed to be good at what I do and to get paid well enough to take care of myself and my children. But money is not everything; at least it's not for me. I need the feeling that I have done something meaningful at the end of the day. At the moment, I don't always feel that way.
So one day, God gave me an idea. I believe it was Him that gave me this idea because I know I would never have come up with it myself because it's so random and not like anything I have done before. Not only am I a divorced single mom, I'm also a survivor (I hate the word "victim") of domestic abuse. I have always known that I'd like to help other survivors in some way, but I didn't know how. I have volunteered with our local chapter of a national organization that assists survivors, but always felt so far removed from the survivors themselves that I never felt like I was really making a difference. It felt corporate, if that makes sense. I wanted to see the survivors and let them see me helping them directly.
So back to the idea God gave me - here it is: Buy a camera, learn to use it on a professional level, and then work with local domestic violence shelters to take pictures of the ladies in an effort to build their self esteem. The pictures could be used for Christmas cards, or just as decoration in their new homes. I am so thankful for the opportunity to be used in this way. But I know it will be a long road to seeing this dream come to pass. As I mentioned earlier, I have absolutely no photography experience beyond using my cell phone camera and I hardly think that counts. So this should be an interesting journey!
I purchased a Nikon D3200 from Amazon about a month ago. I have been playing with it a little - here are some of the first pictures I took:
I'm just getting started so obviously I'd love to improve the quality of my pictures. I'm excited to continue this journey and to document it here. In a few years' time, it'll be fun to look back on my earlier posts to see how far I have come!
