A Life Defined
Two weeks ago while redesigning a few features on my website, I accidentally deleted all of my previous blog posts. With a deep sigh and feeling of loss, I knew it was time to shut down my computer before I accidentally clicked one more button. All those words from my heart were here one minute, and gone the next.
A week and a half ago my sweet dog Kodah who is an 11-year-old Shepherd/Lab mix was diagnosed with Canine Cognitive Dysfunction (Canine Alzheimer’s). Within a week she was walking into walls, unable to have any depth perception, reach her w
ater bowl with her mouth, chew, and was constantly pacing. It all just happened so quick. On the 24th Keith and I made the very hard call under the advice of our veterinary team that we needed to let Kodah go. It was the hardest moment we have ever had to go through. She was here and I was holding her one moment, and the next she was gone.
A Quest For Light has always been in my heart. I’ve felt for a long time that God wanted me to use my love of photography to show his majesty and glory through my lens. I also love to write, and I’ve secretly held the desires to one day write a book. It wasn’t until my sweet friend, Katie DePoppe urged me to start blogging that I felt a little surge of bravery and began blogging.
After a few months of blogging and about a dozen posts, I began to become aware of how important it was to have not only a defined blog, but a defined mission, purpose and voice. I’ve always desired this to be an authentic place. It’s on my heart to teach the Word of God to both new Christians and maybe also have a small word of encouragement to veterans. I want to inspire and encourage people to deepen their relationship with Jesus.
I’ve grown up in the church and I’ve also grown up with devotions sent to my email. I’ve grown so tired of hearing stories of the writers kids, families, struggles and then a biblical principle worked in. I’m just being real here…
Just as I was about to get onto a soap box and judgy, I realized there was a very important element to those daily devotional emails that I received to my inbox. It was through those very real moments of them doing life, that they opened up themselves to me and shared vulnerability, struggle, and authenticity with me. It was more personal than I as one reader gave them credit for.
This leaves me at a place where I need to let you know what you can expect from A Quest For Light as a blog, and sometimes devotional. Here you’ll find me being real. You’ll find my life both the good the bad, and the days I lose my best friend. You’ll find joys, triumphs, celebration, encouragement. You’ll find my thoughts, beliefs, and opinions along with my photographic work and development as an artist. You’ll also find my vulnerability and how I cope with the hard stuff and work to keep my eyes focused on Jesus and not the pain in my soul.
Life is short. Apparently so are the life of blog posts. The night that I lost all of the posts (without having any backups) Keith looked at me and asked me to please start keeping word documents of everything I write because if something happened to me, he wanted to save them (oh that sweet husband of mine). Breathing fresh breath into my blog with this first post (the second time around) seems appropriate right now. It’s a tribute to Kodah, of moving forward, of legacy, and of carrying on.
