These Mountains We Climb

You are exactly what the world needs right now. Did you know that?

Exactly what your spouse needs. What your babies need. What your team at works need. My pageant is encouraging all of us to use social media this year for transparency and honesty and outreaches of love. And although I’ve blogged and I’ve photographed and I’ve shared parts of myself for years now, I froze up lately on what to do or say. It was just last month that I wrote out an email to my pageant director telling her I was out. I couldn’t participate anymore. It was TOO MUCH to be a title holder amidst everything the world has thrown at us.

Since last March I have literally been balancing a full time photography career, a full time advertising career at my arena, AND my two boys under 3-years-old all during a pandemic where all of us–me included–felt the pressure of finances, job losses, economic disaster, sickness, quarantine, and everything else under the sun. I was unable to participate in all the fun events I looked forward to with my pageant, unable to wear my sash and crown to galas and dinners and charity balls, unable to log in the volunteer work I so badly wanted to log. The extent of showing off my sash was my own backyard where my amazing hubby would take pictures for social media posts. And I felt like a failure and a bare minimum. “This isn’t how I want to represent my title”, I told my director. But she reminded me of something that I had forgotten, and the reminder kept me in the pageant and I hope it also can keep your own feet planted where they are.

You–exactly where you are and what you’re doing–is what the world needs right now. You’re enough.

Are you a stay-at-home mom who spends most of her time in a messy bun with peanut butter on her shirt? It’s where your kids need you. Are you balancing three jobs to pay the bills and barely finding time to read to your kids at night? It’s ok. You’re doing exactly what you should be doing right now. Are you jobless due to the pandemic? Did you just lose your small business? Did you lose a loved one to Covid or some other disease this past year and you find it a celebration when you’re able to get out of bed this morning amidst the grief? It’s ok. You are standing where you need to be. I think it’s ok to give ourselves grace. After all, that’s what the Lord does for us every day. We will always fall short, always go to bed wishing we had accomplished one more thing. We will always lay beside our children and think, “I’ll do better for you tomorrow”.

But again and again, we show up.

We push our bodies the extra mile. We smile through pain. We hammer out that last report by lamplight at 1 in the morning. We take the time to listen to a friend. We still wear our sash—even if we’re in flip flops in our backyard during a pandemic. You are what the world needs right now. Will you be standing right here forever? No way. But right now? You’re representing your family, your kids, your job, your life—the way you need to be. Just like I have to remind myself as I take my journey to represent a title I’ve been so amazingly been given that I can be a photographer, a director, a mom, a wife, all the things I take pride in and work so hard at, and fulfill it all to the best my heart can do. And the rest? The parts that fall short? The little failures or the times I drop the ball?

That’s where grace comes in.

Grace. Lots and lots of grace.

“And the rest? The parts that fall short? The little failures of the times I drop the ball? That’s where grace comes in.”