Working with Holley Gerth’s God-Sized Dreams Team this last 6 months has been a wild ride.  I have made some great blogging connections, I’m able to participate in a prayer group weekly, and most of all I feel like my own dream has begun to form itself in new and wonderful ways.  I’m actually not sure I would have been able to answer the following questions before being invited to this group.

What part of your dream feels the riskiest?

I’ve learned that I actually have two dreams and both are intertwined.  I want to photograph and write about how the everyday chaos are truly the most beautiful moments in life. The riskiest parts for me are therefore twofold as well.

On the photographer side, my riskiest moments are anytime I work with a client. Ha!  I’m a pretty extreme introvert around new-to-me people (though I’m pretty loud once you get to know me!).  So making that initial pre-session consult phone call, communicating my photography vision to clients, greeting clients as they arrive, and then sitting down for the ordering session where clients see the bulk of their images for the first time pretty much throws me way beyond my comfort zone.

On the writer side, my riskiest moments are digging deep enough to have anything publishable.  I can really run to the preachy side of things (I’m a natural leader/teacher), but to really dig deep from the dirt of my own everyday mess to share with you my own sin and God’s glory in those moments…. Some weeks I just can’t even bring myself to do it at all.  Being faithful in this area is very difficult.

Have you ever had people misunderstand or disagree with your dream?

As a Myers Briggs Introvert/Intuition/Thinking/Judging (INTJ), I feel misunderstood every time I share my dreams.  As a natural thinker/judger, I just assume everyone thinks like I do and have judged and categorized my dream even if they’re completely different personality types.  And even though that’s my natural bent, I hate being stuck in a category (ha!).

There are moments on the photography side where I feel like I cause huge disagreements with my pricing: I have priced myself to make around $9-11 an hour and I know that can often make me seem expensive.  I’m happy to refer potential clients to another photographer (if they give me their budget), but I really feel fairly priced. So there’s a lot of insecurity around pricing.

As the girl who just taps the keys here on this blog hoping to be used to change the world (or really just one soul), I’m not sure I’m even yet able to verbalize the writing part of the dream yet except to my husband and closest friend.  I’m scared to verbalize it because I really don’t want to be misunderstood.

What do you do when your dream is scary or when others don’t support you?

I’ve come to this place in the last 6-9 months where I feel pretty confident that my job is simply obedience.  God calls me to this writing/photographing/child-rearing season and all I’m supposed to do is faithfully show up and do the next step.  So when the dream is scary I just do the next step.  But also as a strong-willed introvert, the support of others isn’t usually an area where I struggle too much (although there are days where I do!).

But either way… I’m not responsible for the results.  I’m only responsible for my obedience.  God’s in charge of the results. (<—Click here to Tweet this) So I’ll just keep plugging along day by day and minute by minute to see what He’s working.  I hope you’re brave enough to join me.