He is clearly seen.

I had the honor to photograph the lovely Hill family this afternoon – New Year’s Eve!  Ana and Paul are also celebrating their 25th wedding anniversary today.

Hill family:  I am so happy that we had the “warm” weather we did today, although a far cry from Argentina!  I’m happy we could do it while you were all together here in the states.  It was a lovely day talking with you and taking photographs.  Thank you so much for all of your cooperation and for braving this chilly weather.  You are wonderfully delightful to be around!  Here’s your sneak peak:

Christmas celebrations have come to an end.  We savored it as a family, although, I felt a bit more pressure than I intended and certainly more than I liked.  My favorite moments:

Reading the love letters we left for one another under the Christmas tree.

The tears Makenna shed for the necklace we had made for her (the same one was made for Olivia) – a pendant that says “an audience of One”.

Liv’s tears of joy reading Mak’s letter to her.

Spending the day with my favorite people on earth.

Once again, blessed by His grace and kindness.

And now, I am in my typical the-year-is-changing-to-the-next contemplation mode.  The Lord is pressing in on me to focus on joy.  JOY in Him.  Not things, not moments and not dreams – Him.  Without joy and satisfaction in Him alone, there is nothing.  Without helping my children discover true, honest joy in the One that matters most, I will be an utter failure as a mother and human being.  I mean that.  I don’t want to raise them to follow rules and to be sure to be good girls.  Who wants to follow rules for the sake of being a rule follower?  Can you say ridiculous?  Insanity – yes – that is insanity.  Instead, let’s find pure joy and satisfaction in King Jesus for He is worthy.  How well do we do that as parents?  How well do we convey that He’s altogether wonderful?  How often do we go about quoting Scripture and pointing out rules without reflecting the joy we have in Him?  This will be my personal focus this year………….and the perspective from which I parent.

“God defines evil in this way when he says, ‘my people have committed two evils:  they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water’ (Jer. 2:13).  God pictures himself as a mountain spring of clean, cool, life-giving water.   The way to glorify a fountain like this is to enjoy the water, and praise the water, and keep coming back to the water, and point other people to the water, and get strength for love from the water, and never, never, never prefer any drink in the world over this water.  That makes the spring look valuable.  That is how we glorify God, the fountain of living water.

But in Jeremiah’s day people tasted the fountain of God’s grace and did not like it.  So they gave their energies to finding better water, more satisfying water.  Not only did God call this effort futile (“broken cisterns that can hold no water”), but he called it evil:  ‘My people have committed two evils.’  They put God’s perfections to the tongue of their souls and disliked what they tasted; then they turned and craved the suicidal cisterns of the world.  That double insult to God is the essence of what evil is.

So preferring the pleasures of money or power or fame or sex over the “pleasures………….at {God’s} right hand” (Ps. 16:11) is not like preferring caramel to hot fudge.  It is a great evil.  Indeed it is the ultimate meaning of evil.  Esteeming God less than anything is the essence of evil.”

~John Piper

And so the 2012 work begins.  Fighting for joy in Him.

Thanks to everyone who entered the drawing for a session with me next year!  I wish I had the time and resources to give everyone who entered a session!

The winner is:  Tanta Demarais.  Congrats, Tanta!  I’m looking forward to meeting you!

I’m giving away a session for 2012. Session to be completed between May and September & can include up to 5 people. Please leave a comment if you’d like to be entered to win!