Today Im writing about finding the rainbow amongst your storms. Sounds cheesy right? Well, you’re kind of right, but Im a cheesy person so work with me here.

This article was inspired by browsing my Facebook feed the other day and coming across 10 too many “poor me’s…”, “life sucks” “what a crappy day its going to be”. I just couldn’t take it anymore so I quit reading. What I found is that it actually subconsciously affected my day and how I began to look at things! I noticed myself getting easily angered in traffic, impatient while waiting in line, less generous and more selfish. I thought the day revolved around me and anyone who thought different was on my poo list (which isn’t a very threatening list). Reading the negative status updates completely changed my entire day and how I handled it.

I had a moment shock me back into reality when I watched this video about a teenage boy who was diagnosed with terminal cancer. You’ve probably seen it! Well, I cried through the entire video and Im pretty sure Jared did too, but you didnt hear that from me. I was SO inspired about how this young man found joy in his 6 months to live. He wanted to make an impact on the world before he left it and did so by selflessly giving his time to others. He deepened his relationships, gave more of his time, and just genuinely lived the rest of his life trying to serve others. He blessed those around him and they will forever remember and be impacted by his positive outlook on life.

Wow. To have terminal cancer and still want to serve those around you…what a blessed attitude!! He could have easily decided to complain, to be bitter, to be mad at God for allowing him and his family to go through this suffering, and to have completely given up on the rest of his precious life. But he didn’t and so many people…MILLIONS of people….are now watching his story and being transformed in their days because of his perspective on life.

Now, before you start giving me excuses like “Rachel, its easy for you to say! You dont have to deal with ______”.

In the last nine months Ive:

• Had a miscarriage at 12 weeks and the same day we told everyone was the same day we lost the baby. All while watching and trying not to be jealous of my sister-in-love having a beautiful healthy baby boy whom I love to DEATH! He’s my squishy!
• Experienced financial distress, thank you Dave Ramsey for helping us get through it!
• Jared being gone with travels all the time for work. I know this one sounds silly but being with someone for 10 years, never traveling without the other, then all the sudden one being gone for a week out of every month. It was hard to get used to and caused a lot of anxiety.
• Which brings me to this one…. serious anxiety attacks.
• Having surgery for chronic pain and being diagnosed with an incurable disease called Endometriosis that could potentially effect infertility some day.
• Finding out Im gluten and dairy intolerant but must also avoid soy. You know how hard that is?
• The death of my father in a tragic and unexpected way this past February.

To say my life is butterflies and rainbows would seem far from the truth. But someone once told me at the beginning stages of my miscarriage that “our experiences in life can either make us bitter or better….” and I have to choose EVERY SINGLE DAY for my circumstances to make me better. It is far from easy and takes a lot of prayer, faith and support. My amazing husband is the best thing that could have happened in my life. He knows exactly how to handle me, my stress, my sadness in the grief, and also knows how to show me my love language.

So….how do you find the rainbow in the storms? The next time you are feeling down and sorry for yourself I want you to take a minute to first, breathe, and then second, make a long list of 30 things that you should be thankful for. For example, my list looks a bit something like this…..

1. The roof that covers my head at night
2. The freedom to buy healthy food
3. My car that works even though its old
4. My loving husband who is faithful to me
5. Freedom to praise my God wherever I want
6. Clothes that keep me safe from harmful weather
7. Money to support missionaries in the field
8. Warm coffee to wake me up in the morning
9. Clients and Friends who keep me in business
10. A doggy who will always show me love in a sad day

Im a firm believer in that we go through hard stages of life to be able to help those who are also suffering in those same areas. Here is a Bible passage that confirms my reason….

³ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, ⁴ who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. ⁵ For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ. (1 Corinthians 1: 3-5)

Have a happy day people!

To be a blessing in someone’s life today here are some opportunities that we’ve found…..

http://fishapparel.gostorego.com/foundation-shirts/oklahoma-strong.html

https://www.redcross.org/donate/index.jsp?donateStep=2&itemId=prod10002

http://www.generosityfeeds.org

http://www.warmwesterville.org

Just see for yourself, they’re cuties!!!

Um. How GORGEOUS is she??

Like, really grow up.

Ive known Becky since my 9th grade year in high school and we even used to work together at our part time jobs slinging some pizza dough! I remember one of the first times I met Becky and I thought she was just the most perfect thing I’d ever seen- tall, skinny, bubbly personality and super sweet! She reminded me SO much like Jessica Simpson!

I’ve loved watching Becky graduate school, fall in love and get married and now playing her role as a mother, she’s super woman. Oh, did I mention she gets up for boot camp at 5am!? I mean, come on. When I have kids people will be lucky if I get my teeth brushed…. JK!

Becky does my hair, and has for years, I HIGHLY recommend her. Just ask for Nikki Morey at the Kenneths Westerville location! She is literally the BEST!

Umm…I love this squishy face!

Aren’t they just the cutest little family?

Im so glad we were able to catch our downward spiral before it was too late. Jared and I now have a renewed vision of what our marriage needs to look like, and it isn’t just being business partners. We NEED to play together, craft together, have fun together, and most of all….pray together.

Our relationship was definitely not a bad one. We never really fought, argued or felt like we were distant from one another. But quantity time together is much different than quality time together. It had been a long time since we had created a safe environment for one another to express our concerns, feelings and struggles. We weren’t as connected as we needed to be!

Im so thankful for the evening on the second night. Jeff and Julia Woods shared their testimonies and where they had been attacked for the last 6-8 years. To keep things simple, they were hurt and broken. That night they had us all break off individually and answer some questions and pray over them. The last question was “What area does God want me to be vulnerable in tonight with my spouse?”….This is where our marriage was shaken to the core.

We came back together as a couple and went off to our own room. In that room we shared things with one another that we had NEVER shared with anyone before. I have never in my 10 years of being with Jared felt as close to him that night than ever before. As we poured out our hearts to one another and made ourselves so completely exposed and vulnerable, a HUGE weight had been lifted. It was a game changer, folks! I have never loved this man more than I do today. This retreat completely changed how we feel about one another, how we communicate and how we do business. No longer is it the first thing we talk about in the morning. We have set hours of office work and now set days of shooting and I have never been happier about this change in our life. Its added structure to our day and now at 7pm, the office lights go off, the computer is shut down and we take the rest of the night to spend it with each other and/or our families.

Here are some take aways we received at the retreat:

1. Our relationship with God comes first. Then our marriage. Then family and friends. Then our business.
2. Taking time to slow down and listen to God speak is so important. We’re always in a rush to get from place to place that we drown out the voice of God with our own wants and desires.
3. We need mentors. Both for our marriage and our business. Keeping the two separated is vital to maintain our relationship.
4. We need to be content with where we are and where God plans on taking us. Our dreams may not be Gods will. And we need to accept that.
5. Keeping an open safe zone of communication for each other. No judging, no “fixing”, and no harmful words. Just pouring out love and forgiveness.
6.  Being a part of a community and contributing to your community is important for establishing relationships. If Jared and I decided to leave Westerville and move across the state, would anyone care or even notice we were gone? What impact are we making to those around us each day?
7. Structure. No more waking up as we please, no more working from 8am-11pm. We wake up, do our bible studies, eat breakfast, SHOWER and undress from PJ’s and get into the office at the same time everyday. Adding structure, even just for this week has decreased stress levels. And who doesn’t like decreased stress?? Business will take from you what you allow it to take so being constantly aware of your structure if important.
8. Take time to learn the love languages of those around you. Learning how to love your spouse, family, and friends will enable you to build better relationships.

Thank you Katelyn James for the iPhone image on the right!

Here are some of the amazing folks who helped transform our marriage and will continue to keep us accountable in our priorities!

These are all iPhone quality, don’t be scared

We shot their engagement pictures down around the campus of Ohio University and we couldn’t have done it at a more perfect time. The students were all on spring break, the flowers just started blooming and we practically had the entire campus to ourselves. It was picture perfect cheeeeeesey, I know.

When Bryn contacted me this past winter to let me know she was pregnant I just KNEW she was going to be one of those pregnant women who looked absolutely gorgeous through out the entire pregnancy. You know, those ones we all love to hate…;) She just radiated with love when we got to their home downtown Columbus.

Bryn and Justin’s session was such a breeze as we just shot around their house, walked through the park and then went to Jeni’s to grab some treats. I love shooting maternity sessions, especially for my past brides. Its so much fun seeing the different stages of their life and to see their little families growing!

We first signed up for this trip thinking we were going to learn about business growth, how to work more efficiently with your spouse, how to delegate responsibilities and most of all…how to be successful….

We pulled into the long driveway of the Winshape retreat center after a long 9 hour journey down route 75. Towards the end of the trip I became a bit irritable with excitement of just wanting to GET THERE. I couldn’t wait to meet some new people and make some new friends.

We were greeted by a warm welcoming committee (Julia, Katelyn and Jody) that came up and gave us hugs and filled us with happy little smiles. I was so excited to meet these three women. They all are wonderful examples of faith, marriage and industry success. After we said our hello’s we found our amazing room which served as a cow stall back in the 1930′s. Beautiful exposed white brick, glossy wood floors, and the largest bed I think I’ve ever laid in! It was so large and Jared felt so far away that he should have been given his own zip code.

That evening at dinner we met some amazing new couples and shared some great conversation. Mary, Rachel and Suzanne are such lovely women and their guys are awesome supporters in their businesses. We were blessed to have made such great friends on the very first night! The conversation somehow switched to a comment made about the chandeliers, and how they reminded him of Hogwarts. Jared quietly leaned into me and asked if that was a Twilight thing….I of course laughed out loud and shared with everyone his silliness. Poor Jared

I feel like I could potentially make a few blog posts out of our trip and I might just do that. Im a woman full of words and to limit myself to summarizing our experience would be hard and not give the impact Im hoping to make with it. So I’ll start with our sunrise stroll….

The alarm went off early. Too early if you ask me! It was still quite dark in the room and the bed was extra fluffy and warm. All I wanted to do was to curl back up into my lovers arms so he could hold me gently as we slept. But, there was a goal in mind and that goal was far more worth going back to sleep for. I shook awake my J and bugged him to get his warm body out of bed. I glanced outside the window, which I had to stand on my tippy toes to reach, and I saw the most glorious layer of fog. The fog was very thick as it graced the tips of the spires. I hurriedly rushed Jared out the door with our camera so that we wouldn’t miss the sunrise.

We slowed our roll when we stepped outside. Trying to get used to walking slower was a challenge for me. At home and in my errands Im always rushing and in a hurry to get the most done in the least amount of time. But here, at Winshape, we strolled. Jared took my hand, recognizing that slowing down was hard for me, and pulled me under his wing. We walked even slower as we saw the amazing fog that was through the arch way of these two buildings…

Our next view was one of the most amazing sceneries Ive ever laid my eyes upon. Rolling mountains, romantic fog, horses out grazing in the pasture, bull frogs singing, herds of deer playing in the tall grass. It was picture perfect.

We found a trail that lead to the large pond so we decided to walk even further down the hill.  I love this man….

Just as we reached the bottom we looked behind us to see yet another amazing view that very well topped the first one. Isn’t our God amazing? What magnificence we get to experience daily by his creations. He is the one true artist and Im inspired by his work…

Im so glad I got to experience this first morning because every morning after that was very gloomy, cloudy and without fog. I feel very lucky to have witnessed what I did.

We look good together don’t we?

Tomorrow:

Bryn and Justin’s Maternity..

  On monday: 

Our 7 mile bike ride up and back down a mountain, being out of shape, and seeing 3 states all at the same time!