Oh goodness, I literally can’t wait to share every detail of this beautiful wedding. For now, enjoy this frame from Lauren & Blair’s super sweet portrait session. : )

Check out this totally adorable couple! I had a blast shooting with them. : )

Oh goodness. I have found it surprisingly difficult for me to share these photos of my time in India this past February. Truly, it has taken me several months to be able to put these on the internet. I experienced so much in India, so much that was challenging, so much that was heart breaking, so much that was life giving, so much that was joyous. Just, so much.

And I’ve come to find that I cannot share these images without sharing the words that should accompany them. My deepest hope is that these photographs and these words would honor the souls that touched my life in India, and that they might speak loudly and boldly about the God who continues to move radically and overwhelmingly in all of our lives.

The photographs:

The words:

“i saw Light.”

to say that i saw Christ in India is the truth. to say that i saw Him immediately is a lie.

at first, i forgot to look for Him. i forgot to look for His light. i got lost in the faces, in the hunger, in the vast unlimited poverty that seemed to hang heavy on the dusty city like a fog. i got lost in the beggars on the street with opaque eyes, or those without eyes at all, or those with crippled legs turning impossibly inward at each other. i was lost in the brokenness of the bodies and the places.

if i’m honest, i spent days in india feeling like i’d lost Him. i chose not to see but to be blinded by the images of poverty and pain in those ashy kolkata streets. morning after morning, dreading the bustling world of taxis and orphans and businessmen that curiously collided just outside the crumbling walls of our tiny room.

and i can’t tell you what changed, but something finally did. a light turned on in the deepest quiet places of my heart and i heard the whisper of my dearest friend say, “look for Me”.

all at once i had this photograph in my mind, wherein Jesus stood tall in a crowded street, arms outstretched, bright. He was so bright. and more than that, He was smiling. and i thought soberly about how He could manage that in a place that was becoming my entire undoing.

but He smiled the sweetest smile and He looked at me in this photograph in my mind and i felt Him say,

“in your desperate places, in your deepest need, see Light and find Me.”

so, in the same way your eyes learn to see the shape of dancers in a piece of abstract art, my eyes finally saw the shape of Him in kolkata, and i couldn’t look away. i saw light.

when i looked into these people you see here, I saw Light. not just any light, not just light, but His light.

and what I ultimately learned in India was to look for Light. and when I really started looking, i started to find it everywhere, i started to find Him everywhere:

in a child’s laugh as he plays with empty bottles in the street, in a mother’s soft knowing smile, in the furrowing brow of a young girl – her questions unasked and unanswerable, in the slow cadence of a child learning to speak, in the labored stride of a man whose body only prayer could heal; light in the eyes of a boy destined for something bigger than his father’s farm, light in the pastor who speaks passionately because he believes passionately, light in the kindness of a stranger, light in the warm embrace of an unknown sister,

- and sometimes, caught off guard, i found light in myself – a light that surprised and overwhelmed.

and my challenge to you, and to myself, is to learn to see light. not just in unfamiliar places, not just in impoverished cities or orphanages, but in your world, in your community, and inside of yourself.

because the light you find is the light that sustains in the midst of the oft-present darkness that wants desperately to keep you blinded. don’t let it be so.

choose to see Light, and you will see it everywhere. and most of all, choose to share it.

share what you find, for that is the call on our lives: seeking, finding, and ultimately sharing the beauty that does not wither, the truth that does not change, the love that does not yield, the light that does not dim, and the perfect face Who does not turn from us – not even in our desperate places and darkest need.

“How precious is your steadfast love, O God!

The children of mankind take refuge in the shadow of your wings.

They feast on the abundance of your house,

and you give them drink from the river of your delights.

For with you is the fountain of life;

in your light we do see light.“