You are God's Delight

Lately I have been going through a personal bible study called, "Being Yourself".  The first section is called "You are God's Delight".  I loved being reminded of this.   Sometimes I forget that God made me just who I am.  That he already knows everything about me and everything that will happen to me.  One main passage from this section is Zephaniah 3:17, "The Lord Your God is with you; He is mighty to save; He will take great delight in you; He will quiet you with His love; He will rejoice over you with singing."  For me this is just such a great reminder of how much God loves us.  It was so calming to read again that God is with me; He has saved me and he takes delight in me.  Sometimes I get so nervous wondering what people think of me that it was just so comforting to hear that God takes delight in ME.  Our God who made the whole world, who takes care of so many people, and who is everywhere all at once.  He planned the whole world, he made everything living creature down to the smallest insect.  He knows everything, everyone, and cares about each person, animal, and thing down to the most insignificant.  I just cannot fathom that such a God would care about me, especially since I have messed up so many times; but he does, and he cares about YOU too.

Watch out!

I have so many things I want to blog about!!!  Stay tuned!

Don't Be Afraid to Follow your Gut

I recently had the opportunity to go to this amazing intensive called Making Things Happen 2010.  My instincts were telling me to not miss this opportunity to meet and connect with a lot of people I admire.  My adrenaline was pumping and I was so so excited!  I would have never considered going except Emily Ley who works with Lara Casey called and offered me a partial scholarship to go.  I cannot tell you how excited I was because I didn't give them my number they found me.   But in order to go we would have had to pay for transportation there and a hotel in Chicago where it was.  When we were looking at tickets they still didn't have the location of the intensive secured.  That weekend was Jason's birthday.  Basically I had to make a choice.  I cannot talk to Josh about my remorse because he told me to go.  He would have taken off school and we would have drove to Chicago.   Do we spend the money?  Do we pack in the weekend and have this amazing spontaneous trip?  This intensive is exactly what I was looking for.  I have my own goals set for 2010 and finding a community of artists and creative people who would provide encouragement to reach my goals is so what I needed.   I listened to some advice that others were telling me, I weighed out all the things that would go into going, and thought about my life's ultimate priorities. I came to the responsible realistic conclusion that it would be better to not go.  WHY?  I knew in my gut that this experience would be completely worth the investment.  That the opportunity to do this doesn't come everyday; that I needed to just grab on and hold on and just enjoy doing something crazy and then reap the benefits.  Basically I didn't listen to my gut.   I'm not going to say I didn't regret not going because I'm writing a whole post on it.  But at the time I'm glad that we had that family time.  We had a wonderful weekend with our little family and with extended family to celebrate our little boy turning 5.   But I know I would have come back from that intensive even more pumped to jump into the year to reach my goals and celebrate what I was made to do.   I can only hope that some time down the road I will have another great opportunity to connect with people who are just as passionate about life as I am and to meet people that greatly inspire me to be who God made me to be, and to not be afraid to follow your gut.

New blog

One new thing I have been working on is getting a blog specifically for Hannah Taylor Photography.  So from now on all my best photography work and other interesting things I can find or see pertaining to weddings or I guess whatever I want will be at www.hannahtaylorphotography.blogspot.com.
The Taylor life blog will now just be about us Taylor's again.  Whew!  That way I can post fun snapshots that don't have to be perfect.  I just thought I would let you know.

Hannah's Thoughts ~ Why Can't We Be Friends?

I've been thinking a lot about how long its been since I blogged something.  I really don't like feeling behind.  I have also been reading more lately especially about "inner circles" and being authentic, real person.  One, I have realized how small my own inner circle is.  Which made me wonder why?  I think I have figured out to a certain extent for me its from this constant competition women put themselves through.  There is the "keeping up with the Jones'" and then there is basically being a woman.  So I tried to think of all the ways that women compare with one another (this starts in high school and I think gets better some with maturing but still....) Here's my list:

Who's pretty/prettiest, skinniest, what does your husband does, who has their make-up done, who has their hair done - fixed nice for the day or even who has highlights or has dyed their hair, who's hair is the prettiest, of course forever and ever clothes, shoes, purses, do you work or do you stay at home?, how long was your labor and delivery?, how short was your labor and delivery?, who decorated a nursery?, who had their baby sleep in a closet because they didn't have the space, how long did you breastfeed?, did you supplement with formula?, how fast did you lose the baby weight, how much weight did you gain when you were pregnant,  how much weight have you gained since high school,  how many activities or sports are you or your children in,  I think in some ways too some might compare how friends so and so have on facebook, how is your house decorated, do you scrapbook, do you go to fitness classes, how much does your husband help around the house, even how much work do you have to do, who's life is the hardest, do I need to go on?  I mean seriously, every single aspect of you, your body, looks, life, anything really there could be a comparison.  Why do we put ourselves through this?
It's intimidating.  It's down right scary.
There is one fact that is hard to ignore:  women need each other.  Women need to socialize, they need to connect.  Women provide for one another the support that men will never give or even care to give.  So why do we put ourselves through these constant competitions and beauty pageants?   Why can't we just get past all the material things that stand in the way of really opening up to people?  Why can't we be friends? We would live longer and live healthier happier lives.