Home for Christmas

It's great being home for Christmas!

Pearl and I turned our 12 hour drive to Georgia to be with family into 1500 photos, then made each photo about .002 seconds, and finished it off with some good music.

Enjoy!

And MERRY CHRISTMAS!

I'll be home for Christmas from Matt Parks on Vimeo.

dark beauty

It was midnight, it was cold, the snow was well over my knees and the wind singing in my ears had started to turn my head into a freezer box. It was not a hopeful sunrise, or a refreshing sunset, it was not the warm energy of midday, no it was night, cold, windy, lonely.

Yet I stood, I waited, I looked past the dark, the discomfort and in the midst of this moment beauty emerged.

The peace of a frozen lake and the warmth of a glowing home, the old hardness of a factory in front of the joyful youth of a ski hill, the white of snow in contrast to the dark of the sky.

Yes in the midst of this cold, windy, lonely night beauty was found.

And such is life.

May we be willing to embrace our nights, to stand just a little longer in the discomforts, and may our eyes look past the gray and dark and into the beauty that slowly comes into focus.

some thoughts

It's been one amazing of a year!

Here's a recap.

- A year ago we were merging our photography studio into Jeremy Hess' studio. The game plan was to do full-time photography, full-time grad school, and volunteer significantly at LCBC.

- In February LCBC invited me to come back on staff in a part-time support role instead of just volunteering. I originally started doing photography because I wanted to be able to be the owner of my time at a greater level so that I could be as involved as I desired with the church, I was really excited to join the team again!

- We booked lots and lots of weddings for 2010

- LCBC offered me a full-time role of overseeing the launch of the Lancaster City campus' Student ministry.

- Pearl and I talked and prayed a lot about this. Wrestled with lots of questions. We felt good about approaching Jeremy about me leaving the studio and going back to LCBC.

- Jeremy and I talked and prayed... we wrestled through more questions, we finally felt good about me moving back to the church and leaving the studio.

- I went full time with LCBC, I cried when I when back, I was so very happy to be back!

- We photographed all our booked weddings (for a total of 24 in 2010)

- Pearl and I still did full-time grad school

- We cut all extras out of our life when wedding season started, including blogging and other fun stuff.

- We launched Student ministry at the city campus, remodeled an old nasty office space into a sweet room, gathered amazing leaders, and started a wild adventure with some amazing students.

- We were really, really, really, busy! Like very unhealthy let's just fight for our sanity and marriage busy.

- We finished all the weddings, which were all wonderful and so much fun.

- We made it through our classes, with even ok grades in most.

- We're finally slowing down for the holidays (release deep sigh of relief here).

- I am loving being back at LCBC and with the student ministry team!

- We're looking forward to finishing our MDiv degrees this coming summer.

- We're looking forward to photographing only a few weddings and not totally stressing ourselves out in 2011 (we've already booked 4 and are hoping to do around 8)

- We're looking forward to seeing the Lancaster City campus turn 1 year old and to hear more stories of God changing lives and healing hearts.

- We had a really fun Student ministry team party last night

- I updated my blog and remembered how much I loved writing and processing here.

- I made a video of last night's party.

- I posted the video

- I'm now going to make myself lunch.

Enjoy!

Student Min Christmas Party 2010 from Matt Parks on Vimeo.