Life as a Suzal

Well, it’s finally come to that point. My big brother, or “brutho” as I like to call him, is getting married. His wife-to-be was hand-picked for him by his two younger sisters as soon as they met. They just didn’t know it. Travis is not only my brother, he’s my close friend. He’s steady, honest, and hilarious. He’s a great listener, loves his family, and his Lord. Rosalie is darling. Also a close friend. She has the cutest expressions and a very giving personality. I can’t wait to see how God works through them as a married couple!

Bubs, you’re finally gettin’ hitched! Thar! Roseeeee, our scheme worked! Yay! ; ) Much, much, much love to you both.

Aren’t they just too cute…

*FAV!*

Feets!

Rosalie’s laughing was just too adorable. I guess Trav’s humor is funny to her, too.

I have never seen my brother with such a “Look what I have that you don’t have” expression. And Rosie’s is pretty much the same..!

I specifically took this picture for my hubs. It just had Lukas written all over it.

Tiptoes!

Awwwwww

Soon to be Mr. & Mrs. Green!

Last Friday night something scary happened to me. Probably one of the most terrifying things that has ever happened to me.

But I have to back up. To make a long story short, I was born with one eye legally blind. Hence I have always been very careful about keeping my good eye safe. For over 20 years I have been keeping it safe. Then last weekend something scary happened… suffice it to say I had an accident that injured my eye. My good eye.

Right after if happened, I was terrified. I was seeing double vision. Would I never see again?? The idea of living the rest of my life blind in both eyes, not being able to drive, or take pictures, have Lukas take care of me, was more than I could bear. I cried out to God, “Lord if it is your will, make my eye ok, I plead with you that my eye would be ok.” After a moment, my heart wasn’t beating quite so loudly in my ears. After a moment, God’s peace enveloped me as I knelt, as the created before the Creator. As I knelt knowing that God had me in His hands no matter what, for all of this life and the one to come. What a precious, precious truth that came alive so vividly in my mind that moment. God is trustworthy. He holds me in the palm of His hand.

A hospital trip later, I found out… I was ok. Not even a scratch. PRAISE GOD!!!

Last Wednesday night my youth Pastor Austin Duncan talked alot about thankfulness. This was the perfect week for me to hear it. The fact that I am whole and healthy is an amazing gift. The fact that Jesus saved me from my sins that I may have communion with the God of the universe is an AMAZING gift!!! It is good to contemplate how much the Lord has given us, and PRAISE HIM!

I will bless the LORD at all times;
his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
My soul makes its boast in the LORD;
let the humble hear and be glad.
Oh, magnify the LORD with me,
and let us exalt his name together!

~Psalm 34:1-4

On the fourth of July of this year, more happened in my family for celebration besides fireworks. Or maybe I should say a different sort of fireworks occurred. Am I hinting deeply enough yet? Ok, here’s another… Lukas and I are expecting an addition to the family. No, we’re not expecting a baby. But I’M GETTING A NEW SISTER!!!

My brother, Travis proposed and was accepted by Rosalie Mae on July 4th, 2010 in Atlanta, GA to the excitement of family and friends. Yesterday I had a lot of fun going to the beach and hanging out with them as well as taking some engagement photos. So enjoy the preview, the appetizer that I hope makes you hunger for more, I know it does for me!

Last Saturday, Lukas and I did a fun Photo Shoot at a friend’s Studio. It was kind of like the Contrast Concepts shoot we did last fall, (minus the bride aspect /props) but in an indoor type setting. We had a studio director, videographer, shoot stylist, makeup artist, three photographers, and four fun models. It’s just such a fun experience having a bunch of creative people working together in one place and I love it!

All to say, at the end of the shoot I wanted to grab just a couple close up shots to see the difference with studio lighting than the natural lighting I usually use. Compared to my other Headshots, these are so…I don’t know,  clean!

Make sure to check out Lukas’ site for a different take on the shoot!

And this one just for fun!!!

Four years ago, at the Bible Study I was attending, a book was given out to thirty something college students from an anonymous donor. The point was made that this book was so impacting in the life of this anonymous person that they wanted it to be accessible to our group. The challenge was made to take a book only if you truly planned on reading it. I took it eagerly and started reading right away. I recognized the book as a Christian classic, one every Christian should read. You’re probably familiar with it. The book is “Knowing God.” by J.I. Packer.

Unfortunately, at that time I only made it a quarter of the way through the book before it somehow ended up back on my shelf, unfinished. So last week a friend and I decided to go through the book together. Needless to say, I am very excited! I just finished chapter two this morning, and thought I would share some impacting statements.

Packer makes a point that there is a difference between knowing God and knowing about God.

“One can know a great deal about God without much knowledge of Him. We read books about theological exposition and apologetics. We dip around in Christian history, and study the Christian creed. We learn to find our way around in the Scriptures… Our friends tell us how much they value our contribution… All very fine- yet interest in theology, and knowledge about God, and the capacity to think clearly and talk well on Christian themes, is not at all the same thing as knowing him.“*

“One can know a great deal about godliness without much knowledge of God…In this analytical and technological age there is no shortage of books on church booktables, or sermons from the pulpits, on how to pray, how to witness, how to read our Bibles…The questions is not whether we are good at theology…The question is, can we say, simply, honestly, not because we feel that as evangelicals we ought to, but because it is a plain matter of fact, that we have known God, and that because we have known God the unpleasantness we have had, or the pleasantness we have not had, through being Christians does not matter to us?

If we really knew God, this is what we would be saying, and if we are not saying it, that is a sign that we need to face ourselves more sharply with the difference between knowing God and merely knowing about him.”*

How convicted I am by reading that… and how I long to say, as a plain matter of fact, that I have known God…

(*Excerpt from Pages 26 & 27, italics mine)

I haven’t been shooting much since returning home from Resolved, which makes me sad because I don’t have anything too colorful to post on my blog. But one thing I do all the time is design wedding albums. I LOVE it. I feel like it’s a whole other side of the creative art of photography - narrowing down pictures from the story of a person’s day to beautifully compile their wedding story.

Today I got to do that for my deeeeear sister in law, Jules!! The especially-specially-special thing is that Lukas and I started dating about five months after Julia’s wedding, so I didn’t go. Now I love her like a sister (wait, she is my sister!!), so going through her wedding day and designing her album was almost like I was there too… well and at least now every time she looks through her album she’ll know my love and care went into making it ; ) Ben & Jules, you guys are too cute; it was hard to choose everything!

Here’s a little snippit!

Here are 15 Resolved Quotables that stood out to me from this year’s conference from our speakers, Rick Holland, C.J. Mahaney, Al Mohler, Steve Lawson, and John MacArthur. Can anyone get all 15 right? Leave a comment and see!

1. “Jesus is not your therapist, Jesus is not your coach, and Jesus is not your guru. Your self help manager. He is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords…Jesus is not your homeboy.”

2. “You put your weak life into His strong hands, and He will uphold you”

3. “Too many of us want the public without the dedication of the private”

4. “The faith that fizzles before the finish had a flaw from the first”

5. “…You can get it that wrong, and you’ll end up in hell. You can get it almost right, and still end up in hell.”

6. “These men all have letters after their name. Mine come before.”

7. “We used to beat up guys like that”

8. “True Christians are distinguished from unbelievers, true Christians are distinguished from nominal Christians by their obedience to Christ.”

9. “I fear that many Christians have a tame and domesticated understanding of what it means for Jesus to be King.”

10. “What we want is an experience so that we will not have to keep ourselves in the love of God.”

11. “…On the other hand I’m fighting with everything I’ve got for the protection of the the truth in the life of the church in the world.”

12. “I pray that we are never unamazed at how MUCH the LORD has done for us!”

13. “Gazing at Christ’s beauties, his glories, his excellencies, elevates the soul to higher vantage points so that you can see and worship Him more clearly.”

14. “It’s really important to get Christ right. Who is he?”

15. “If you don’t experience joy, find something to repent of.”

I just have to laugh at this.  One of my friends told me she even lost her shoe in all the rumble!

Enjoy…!

Lurking behind the seemingly peaceful doors, thousands of people lie in wait…

Ok guys! Ready for this?! You know what to do!

Mike and Mark open Pandora’s box…

And the beast emerges!

They’re free! But little do they know…

…that they will have to stop again. And these guys in green mean business.

Yes, yes, yes, everyone has to stop.

Now listen to Mark.  Ok, we’re going to do this walking.

Listen everyone! Say it with me, waaaallllkiiinnnnnng.

No, no, you can’t go off to the right. Stay straight.

The fierce guys in green keep it all in control.

Walking, waaaalllkinnnng…

Then a gust of air blows with a mad rush to get seats! Bibles are thrown, people jump on chairs and fall to the floor, shoes are lost! People lay across seats desperately clinging to their hope of sitting near the front…

And that’s what it’s like to get seats at Resolved. Or you could just come a little late and get stadium seats in the back. Kudos to Mark, Mike, and the fierce guys in green who kept everything under control at yet another year of Resolved.

The Resolved Conference 2010 is finally here! For those of you who don’t have any idea what I am talking about, check out www.resolved.org. Lukas and I have been here since Thursday morning, and Palm Springs is nice and toasty just like last year. Lukas has been backstage alot, while I have been mostly in the bookstore helping fold and sell shirts. I just have to brag on my husband a minute, because alot of people don’t realize that he completely designed all the graphics for the background on stage. Nothing was taken off a google search, or pictures off the web; he shot and designed it all AND is covering all the event footage again this year. Isn’t he amazing! While he is doing that, I have been having fun finding random people to interview for our blog. This year we are doing Faces @ Resolved, to get fun snapshots of who is at the conference. It’s soooo cool how people are here from all over!

Today we had some challenging-inspiring-convicting-encouraging-thought-provoking-encouraging sermons from Al Mohler, Steve Lawson and C.J. Mahaney. It was my first time hearing Dr. Mohler preach, and boy was it a treat. Not that I’m biased because he’s from Kentucky or anything. But what can I say? All of the speakers at this conference are amazing and God has given them incredible gifts of preaching. My pastor, John MacArthur will be joining us tomorrow, and I can’t wait to hear what else God has in store for us.

I have to say that I am just blown away every year by this conference at the passionate focus of bringing glory to God by having a true, biblical understanding of who He is. More to come! (Oh, and check out the interviews and pictures of Resolved on Lukas’ site!)

A few weekends ago, we made the long treck up to Oregon to go to our good friends, Jeremy and Jessica’s wedding! It was my first time in OR which was very fun and exciting. But along with the feelings of excitement and happiness, a deep sinking feeling dwelt in the pit of my stomach. You see, this was to be my first wedding shooting by myself.

Lukas was a groomsman in the outfield, so I was up to bat. After praying and praying my nerves would calm down, and I would be able to think quickly to get my settings, the big day came. God was so kind and everything went great! I didn’t trip over the bride and groom, I didn’t sneeze loudly in the middle of the vows, and I didn’t drop my camera up on stage.  Whew!

It was one of the funnest weddings ever!!!

Be sure to check out Lukas’ site for more pictures, and the Slideshow!