Esther's Story

If I had to title this post anything other than “Esther’s Story,” I’d have to go with “The Big Picture.” Here’s why:

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I’m a summer baby. Lazy days, zero schoolwork, and gorgeous warmth do wonders for my spirits. Swathes of golden sunshine draping my room, the sweet touch of water on my skin, the giddy relief of realizing my next Latin class isn’t until mid-August—mm, I shiver with delight. For me, summer is a time when I can let go and let God, as some people like to say. It’s a time when fears pale, comfort zones shatter, and the Lord’s beauty steals my breath away.

The summer of 2010 was no exception. My friends became my siblings through baptism, my heart swelled with the presence of God, and my faith soared to new heights. It was truly amazing. At church camp, God breathed new life into the words of 2nd Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.”

What weakness? you ask. I’m terrified of public speaking. And yet, halfway through camp, I gave my testimony.

Like I said—it was truly amazing. Up until a few years ago, I wouldn’t even talk in Bible class. Reading a verse aloud nearly made me panic. That’s how scared I was. And yet, God used my weakness, my fear, to manifest His power all the more greatly. I experienced the exhilaration of God’s power in me! It was all God. And that was wondrous.

Needless to say, I entered the school year on a major spiritual high. I felt more alive and me than I ever had in my life. For several weeks after summer ended, it seemed as if I saw God in everything!

But that changed. The stresses of school and friends and growing up sank their claws into my heart, and I couldn’t shake them loose. I slacked off on reading my Bible. I turned to a hundred different things for comfort—writing, TV, music, books—all in search of the peace I yearned after in my heart.

Before long, I was exhausted, drained from school, piano, TV, and worry. Nothing seemed to go right, and everything irritated me. I was a barrel of gunpowder waiting to explode. And all the while, I kept blaming God.

“God, why’d you give me such an annoying family? God, why’s my school have to be so hard? God, what’d I do to deserve this punishment? Why can’t You make everything right?”

Well, all this kept building inside me, all the way through last semester and into the New Year. Then, in January, I went to a girls’ conference. Incidentally, it was the same girls’ conference that Ruth mentioned in her story (see last post). The conference was truly life-changing—I expected nothing less, having attended the past 2 years. We talked about “The Big Picture”—understanding that we are God’s masterpieces, and that He had prepared amazing things for us to do. No matter our ages, looks, backgrounds, or stories.

In one of our classes, the teacher referenced Psalm 55:22, “Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall.” Her point was simply this: Just because we are Christians doesn’t mean that we’ll never feel the ground tremble. Yes, the mountains may shake and the seas roar, but God will never abandon us. He’ll be there with us, through the good and especially the bad. He is a God of comfort, as one of my dear friends pointed out, and how can He comfort us in times of happiness and perfection? We “feel the ground tremble” for a reason. We endure pain and loss and frustration in order to draw closer to Him, to mature in our faith, and, ultimately, to become the people He created us to be.

Think of Joseph. This is something else we talked about at the conference. He had 11 brothers, and 10 of them turned against him, threw him into a well, and sold him into slavery. He lost his freedom, endured false accusations, and spent years in jail for something he didn’t do. Sounds pretty horrible, doesn’t it? But guess what? God was with him. He remembered Joseph, and elevated him above all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. Because of Joseph’s trusting, willing heart, God used Him to save Egypt and the surrounding countries from a terrible famine. Joseph’s brothers—the very ones who had sold him into slavery—bowed at his feet and feared death. But you know what Joseph said? “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you…So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God” (Genesis 45:5,8).

WOW! I’d heard the story of Joseph dozens of times, but never before had it come alive like it did that day at the girls’ conference. If God could take a slave and prisoner and turn him into the second greatest man in all of Egypt, imagine what He can do with you!!!

This is how I felt listening to the teachers and keynote speaker at the girls’ conference. I felt God moving in me, speaking to me. Telling me to trust Him and follow Him. To offer Him a willing heart. The words of my life verse, Esther 4:14, came alive to me all over again: “And who knows but that you have come into royal position for such a time as this?”

So, I don’t know how God is going to use my troubles and stresses to change lives. I don’t know what good is going to come of this, or what amazing thing He has planned. But I do know this: as long as I have a willing heart, anything’s possible.

I know winter is tough. It’s long, and dull, and stressful to the breaking point. So often we forget that, without winter, we’d have no spring.

Spring is coming. The season of life and joy and beauty is on its way. It may seem like forever away…but it’s on the way. In the meantime, consider the words of God in Isaiah 28:28—“Grain must be ground to make bread; so one does not go on threshing it forever.”

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So, there you go. Ruth and Esther's stories are different, yet quite similar. They both symbolize that your faith in the winter can be just as prominent as in the summer. Winter exemplifies the sweet promise of spring. Thus, those cold, dreary days can be a breathtaking experience, only if you allow The Photographer to take a beautiful picture.

*A special thank you to our favorite Giant's fan who has helped us through this challenging, yet beautiful season of winter. :)

Ruth's Story

Most, if not all, of us would take summer over winter any day. I mean, be honest--summer's the best. No school, lazy days, golden sunshine--the perfect blend of beauty, right? Of course. And winter...well, we all know what winter's like. Long, gray, dull--like a blank slate without hope of change. And don't forget the school. That's the worst of it. If you're anything like me, school just sucks the life out of you.



But guess what? Over the next week, we, Ruth and Esther, are going to share our stories with you. Stories of how God has taken this dull, dead winter and transformed it into a kaleidoscope of wonder, beauty, and awe. So open up your eyes and soften your hearts. God's about to speak to you.

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Summer and fall are my two favorite seasons. Everything is vibrant and colorful, and relaxing outside in seventy-degree weather is the best. And summer means church camp. And church camp…well, that means God. Especially this summer.



On June 25, 2010, I was baptized at my church camp. It was amazing. I can’t really explain the feeling—it’s just something you have to feel for yourself. But breathtaking is a good word for it, I guess. I’d never felt so in love with God until that week. He revealed Himself to me and that’s when I knew—I had to get baptized.

So, for the rest of the summer I was on a spiritual high. It held through most of the fall as well, because I went to a fall retreat in October. But, starting at a new school and having to make new friends was very difficult. I thought it was going to be easy, but I was so, so wrong!
Thus, winter has been a real struggle because God has been testing my faith and patience.

One day, I’d had enough. I was sick of school, mad at God—I couldn’t stand it. I kept on asking, “Why me? God, why me?” I felt like I had no hope anymore, that no one loved me. Storming into my room sobbing, I noticed a letter on my bed. My sister had heard my outburst downstairs and had written me a quick note with James 1:2-4 written in it. “Consider it pure joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.”

Notice how James wrote ‘when you encounter various trials,’ not ‘if you encounter various trials.’

Fall is a beautiful season, although everything is decaying. Dying—trials and tribulations—and becoming anew in Christ is a beautiful thing to our Heavenly Father. As Christians, we sometimes believe that we’re not allowed to have bad things happen to us. But troubles and hardships are actually blessings to mature us! Trials produce faith; without faith, we are nothing.



Well, you can imagine that this verse made me cry even more. But this time, I was crying tears of joy. For this verse reminded me that God loved me perfectly and I did have hope, amidst all the crazy and unfair things I was dealing with.



In January, I attended an all-day girls’ conference with my church. It was on a beautiful, sunny Saturday, and I have to admit, when I woke up and saw how nice it was for January, I wished I hadn’t signed up for this all-day excursion. I mean, come on, a Saturday? Really? Why was I doing this?



But I can’t even begin to tell you how much this beautiful Saturday in January changed my life. The theme of the conference was “what if there’s a bigger picture?” and, using a wonderful metaphor, the staff portrayed God as the Photographer and His children as the cameras. The pictures were the results of our lives. That, in itself, I thought was pretty darn awesome since I love photography. But the final message was even more incredible. The speaker challenged us to use our gifts that God blessed us with to further His Kingdom. He didn’t go to all the trouble of giving us gifts, only to have us turn around and bury them because of fear, selfishness, or incompetence. He gave them to us for His pleasure, to see us go out and do amazing things with them for His glory. Not ours.

So, later that night I asked God to reveal what He wanted me to do for with my gifts, how He wanted to use me to change others. I prayed and wrote and prayed some more. The next day, the idea came to me—start this blog! He wanted me to use my photography to spotlight His intricate creation to show teenage girls about inner beauty.

So, who would have thought? Winter, a beautiful thing? Well, I believe it, because this winter has matured and completed me and even made me beautiful in God’s eyes.

Mission Statement

Today, the world's perception of beauty is contorted in so many ways. Hair, make-up, figure, skin, clothes, and even talent skew the word "beauty" into an idol that only "the best" can touch. Sadly, we catch ourselves scrutinizing the girls on magazine covers in the grocery store, yearning to look like them. With their perfect skin, hair, make-up, and bodies, Hollywood stars make us completely insecure when it comes to our own images.

But let's take a reality check here. No one really looks like that! Sure, Hollywood's famous for their picture-perfect celebrities, but do you know what else they're known for? Photoshop.

Girls, we tear ourselves apart on a daily basis because we're unhappy with our appearances. Looking at the covers of Glamour and Seventeen usually brings our self-esteem down to zero percent.

But don't get me wrong --there's a bright side to this!

The Creator of the universe, our Heavenly Father, created us in His image. In Genesis 1, God deemed His creations "good." But you know what He said about man? About us? He said we were "very good." You are His ultimate creation! His crowning glory! God wouldn't have spent all that time creating you if He wasn't going to be satisfied with the result. In Ephesian's 2:10, it says that you are beautiful because you are God's masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for you to do.

And not only did He create you--He has a plan for your life, too! Jeremiah 29:11 states, " 'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you hope and a future.' " Isn't that amazing to think about? He already has something wonderful, something amazing and beautiful and perfect, planned for your life. You just have to be ready, willing, to accept it.

The world may look at outward beauty, but God looks at inward beauty. He searches your heart and knows it, and longs for you to look at yourself the way He does. Why spend so much time trying to create a perfect outward image when you could be focusing on your inward self, the one that your Creator values higher than anything else?

My mission for this blog is to show girls of all ages that they are beautiful in God's eyes. That's all that really matters. You don't need Photoshop, plastic surgery, or the world's approval to be beautiful. A gentle and quiet spirit, the unfading beauty that it creates in your inner self--that is of great worth in God's sight.

"Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." ~Proverbs 31:30