{"id":3720,"date":"2019-02-12T18:21:49","date_gmt":"2019-02-12T18:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.devonshanorphotography.com\/?p=3720"},"modified":"2019-02-12T18:21:49","modified_gmt":"2019-02-12T18:21:49","slug":"this-is-my-life-personal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/this-is-my-life-personal\/","title":{"rendered":"This is my Life | Personal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Devon<\/a><\/p>\n

About 10 years ago I was very unhappy in my life.\u00a0 My marriage was a mess and ha<\/strong>d been for years.\u00a0 We both wanted to make it work but PTSD is a very vicious enemy.\u00a0 I was scared,\u00a0 afraid, lonely and felt hopeless. I had plans for my life but they hadn’t played out as I expected, instead my life was full of tears and crying out to God and there seemed no light at the end of my current tunnel.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Fast forward to today.\u00a0 Right now,\u00a0 I’m sitting in a van driving in Ethiopia with some amazing friends. We just left a group of beautiful vulnerable street children, kids whom we love who we have been trying to help for years. As we leave them we now have a legal,\u00a0 solid plan in place to help them. God showed up and moved MOUNTAINS for us. <\/strong><\/p>\n

My good friend and talented musician\u00a0is playing beautiful music on his guitar. We are humming along and laughing at the slow cows and goats crossing our highway. All around me is beautiful farmland showing incredible harvest and the incredible Ethiopian gorge. I’m about to cross the incredible Nile River. We are laughing at the “Lazy Monkeys” begging\u00a0for food as the cars pass them on the side of the road. I’m going home to a healthy husband who misses me, supports my dreams and encourages me to continue to follow them and see bigger than I think possible.\u00a0 I’m\u00a0<\/b>going home to my kids who are learning to pursue their own dreams and make me so proud.\u00a0 I going home to a business I ADORE and can’t wait to get back too.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

I’m literally sitting here thinking “THIS is my life”\u00a0 in awe at the journey\u00a0God has brought me through to get to THIS moment.\u00a0 I’m taking a deep breathe and LIVING THIS MOMENT.\u00a0 I’m thanking God as I see how he had brought me through such dark times and given me such joy.\u00a0 This feeling isn’t so much a feeling as a true PRESENCE of God.\u00a0 I’m not just feeling his JOY I’m literally\u00a0living it and I see it in everything around me.<\/b><\/p>\n

I don’t share this to brag about how amazing my life is but instead to encourage you!\u00a0 Be encouraged if your life isn’t what you want it to be, God is faithful if you are diligent.\u00a0\u00a0 Don’t give up on yourself,\u00a0 your dreams, your happiness. Sometimes you have to make very hard decisions and go through some really hard times that seem to have no end in sight.\u00a0 But you can’t STAY stuck.\u00a0 Leave the job, go back to school,\u00a0 ask for hel<\/strong>p,\u00a0 sell your house,\u00a0 take big risks.\u00a0 Times likely will get worse before they get better,\u00a0 \u00a0but God is in the midst of your struggles\u00a0and there is REASON for it!\u00a0 \u00a0Maybe I went through mine so I could truly appreciate the JOY He would someday bring me.\u00a0 Maybe I went through so I could share my story\u00a0with you and it would bring you courage or strength.\u00a0 Maybe I needed some growing pains to become the woman who could help run this organization helping\u00a0children in Ethiopia.\u00a0\u00a0 All I know is there was a reason and TODAY I get to breathe in and appreciate\u00a0the journey.\u00a0\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

Keep pushing though.\u00a0 Keep dreaming.\u00a0 Take risks.\u00a0 Maybe someday you’ll also be sitting in a van, jamming to live music, about to cross the Nile, just having witnessed a mountain move,\u00a0 following a dream you had once thought had died.\u00a0 You’ll look around and say “Wow, THIS is MY life.”\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Devon<\/a><\/p>\n

This is a song that played in the car moments after I wrote this.\u00a0 Such a perfect song to complement this blog post.\u00a0<\/b>https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Ehm4HLnr-FQ<\/a><\/p>\n

These Pictures were taken on top of the Gorge as we headed back from Debre Markos, Ethiopia.\u00a0 It was me taking a moment\u00a0to just BE in the moment and thank God.\u00a0 It will forever remind me of the time when time stood still and God showed me so much favor and blessing.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About 10 years ago I was very unhappy in my life.\u00a0 My marriage was a mess and had been for years.\u00a0 We both wanted to make it work but PTSD is a very vicious enemy.\u00a0 I was scared,\u00a0 afraid, lonely and felt hopeless. I had plans for my life but they hadn’t played out as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family","category-personal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3720"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3732,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3720\/revisions\/3732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/devonshanorphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}