celebration {me}

So what have I been up to lately? So glad you asked!

There are a few words I could use:

affirmation.

identity.

celebration.

beauty.

fun.

laughter.

imago dei.

me.

I could try and use more words, but the pictures do a pretty good job, too.

{click on the photo to see a few more}

And I'm only getting warmed up.

In an e-mail I sent to friends yesterday, I said:

those of you who have been witness to my journey in any capacity over the last few weeks & months know that i've been taking a meandering & oftentimes reluctant journey not only toward realizing that God made me to be a writer, but toward beginning to understand & to embrace my unique God-given identity as a woman, as God's child, & as one called to be a minister of His grace in a way i'm only beginning to understand. not only that, i've been learning to appreciate, to like & to love all these crazy & amazing things God has planted in me that make me unlike any other.

this photo session was about taking that truth another step & really just celebrating it: celebrating the unfolding of God's plan taking root & blooming in me. it was a wildly fun & empowering experience and (i think) captured some of that imago dei in me.

I guess it's something like that.

It took several weeks for this to go from an idea {I think I want to have a photo session by myself} to actually getting up the guts to research photographers and finally to reach out to the only one who seemed like a good fit {submit comment on photographer's website: do you do this kind of thing?? I'm not getting married or having a baby, is it really okay to do this??}. Eventually, I realized I didn't care if other people had done it; I wanted to do it.

And then it came time to move from concept to reality: hello, butterflies!!

It was nearly two weeks ago that Jen and I dared to traipse all over our local downtown area in the thick of the busiest time of the day: people getting off work, driving by, watching. Me posing, smiling, standing tall and standing out. Tossing flowers, laughing, celebrating. Intimidating at first, but ultimately:

fun. celebratory. affirming. empowering.

An enormous thanks to the lovely, delightful, immensely talented, goofy, and amazing Jen Fox who was my partner and advocate in this project {who, not-so-incidentally, I also went to high school with. What fun!!}.

All this got me thinking: what are some other ways we can affirm and celebrate ourselves?