In His Word Wednesday- Renewing your Mind!

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. Romans 12:2

This verse has taken new meaning to me here recently, as our family is sort of on a mission of revival and renewing all our minds. I recently did a word study on the word renew, to gain a better understanding of what it means to renew our minds. Some interesting ideas came of it. Some of the words that are main ideas included in the meaning of the word renew are to rebuild, to repeat, to revive, to repair, to confirm, to renovate! If you then take these words and break them down by their meanings, it really gives you a picture of what God is telling us when He says He wants our minds to be renewed! I won't go into all the different meanings here (although I may share them on my homeschool blog), but let me tell you...I had pages worth of info on what it means to renew your mind! God wants our minds to be filled with Him. He wants to revive us back to Him, to rebuild our minds with thoughts that are pleasing and Holy. He wants to renovate our thinking into what will be useful for His Glory. We all know that what we think in our mind...comes out in our actions and attitudes. I don't know about you, but for me it is easy to overlook my mind, and focus only on the outward behavior. Well, as long as what I think doesn't come out in my actions, I'm ok. But, Christ gave us a different picture. He told us that when we look at a woman to lust, it is adultery, when we have hatred in our hearts, it is murder! Our thoughts and our actions are one in the same to the Lord. When you think about it, we really need to recognize our thoughts as sin, and repent of them the same we would for the action itself. God wants us to take our thoughts captive, and allow Him to fill them up with Him! This has been a very convicting study for me, and yet, very refreshing, in knowing that with God all things are possible. We can capture our thoughts, and allow the Holy Spirit to renew our minds!

Please join Megan today for more In His Word Wednesday....and if you have never done a word study in your study of the Bible...I highly recommend trying it! If you have any questions about it, I would be happy to pass on how I go about it! It will really help you to meditate further on what God is communicating to us in His word!!

New Business!!

Yesterday as an exciting day for us! I wanted to go yesterday and get our official DBA (officializing our new business!) because yesterday was the one year anniversary of the day that our little foster daughter left us! I wanted what was a very sad anniversary for our family to become a happy day for us. We know that God works all things out for good to those who love Him, and I wanted this sad day to be overshadowed by something good! So....we are now an official photography business recognized by our state and Uncle Sam!

If you had asked me several years ago if I would be a small photography business owner...I would have laughed my head off! This whole process was entirely a God thing! Our goals are different than many photography businesses in that we want to make some profit off of it, but more importantly we want to be a blessing to others through the talent that God has given us! We are being uncovential in our discounts for pastors, military, missionary, and homeschool families for photoshoots. We are also keeping our overall prices generally lower than those of many who do the same kind of photography. I've been warned not to do that, by professionals who want me to value my work. Although I do generally want to be paid for my time away from family during photoshoots, and for the time spent editing images, I don't want the prices to be so cumbersome that the average family could never conceive of hiring me. If this was a make or break income for our family, I would likely reconsider the pricing, but in my mind, God has given me this gift of photography, and I don't want to be steeped in pride about what I have done! I know many people will call us crazy when we choose to give freebies, or discounts on our work, but we feel that if we are not being a blessing to others through this business, then we are not doing it for the Lord...we are only doing it for ourselves!

We are excited about this new crossroads in the life of our family, and look forward to getting the kids involved in it as they grow older (they are already great photography students, and my Ethan loves to help me edit!). This is what we love about being a homeschool family, in that we can enjoy these adventures in what God is doing in our lives with our children!

So...if you have not already seen or been a part of our new business, you can find out more about what we are doing in several different places. You can fan our Facebook page, which you can see to the right of this post. Or you can visit our Smugmug site here: Smug Mug Or...you can start following our blog here: Blog Or....you can visit our still a work in progress website here: Website. If you follow our other blogs already you will see this same post in all places. I apologize for the redundancy, but it will be easier for me to share this all at once.

We are not only selling nature and scripture prints through Smugmug now, but we are also set up to start doing family photoshoots, senior pictures, engagement pictures, and special outdoor events whenever the weather is warm enough here in Southwest Michigan, Northern Indiana!

I hope that we can find a way to bless all of you in the coming years through this gift that God has blessed our family with!!

I Miss my Blogging, and exciting news!

Hi all. I basically was just wanting to pop in and say hi, because my poor blogs have been so horribly neglected ever since the school year started! The big excitement around here has been that we are very close to opening up our own official photography business. This has been entirely a God thing, and we feel very blessed (and sometimes terrified), that He has brought this opportunity into our lives.

We have been selling scripture prints, and are finally preparing to expand into a family photography business as well! We have set up a Facebook fan page, and have acquired a smugmug account, which I am excited about. You can find that here: http://blessingsphotography.smugmug.com/.

I really hope that I find the time to get back into some of my blogging, as I still enjoy doing it very much. I hope that all my friends here in blogworld are well, and that God is remaining in the center of all of your lives! I am thankful for all of you, and I thank you also for all the prayers for my Dad, as he is doing really well!!