Look­ing back on the past two weeks, it’s no won­der I’m a lit­tle tired. We vis­ited fam­ily, helped direct a photo shoot, made new amaz­ing friends in Kerith and Jon and pur­chased a car. While I could expand each of these, for this post, I want to review the photo shoot.

Brand­poet, the agency of record for Grace Col­lege, sched­uled a mas­sive photo shoot for the last week of April. Not only did it encom­pass the usual recruit­ment mate­ri­als like the view­book but we also planned for a year’s worth of fac­ulty, stu­dent and alumni fea­tures for the mag­a­zine. That might not sound like a lot but in four days we worked from 6:45 am until 11:00 pm cap­tur­ing over 16,000 shots of col­lege life all over cam­pus. This was largely pos­si­ble thanks to Kerith Ackley-​​Jelinek coör­di­nat­ing fac­ulty and stu­dent sched­ules to line up with the four cre­ative teams — espe­cially one week before finals.

Each cre­ative team was com­prised of an art direc­tor, pho­tog­ra­pher and project man­ager with a few excep­tions. All three roles played together so well that we had struc­tured timeta­bles with cre­ative expres­sion between. On our team, Liz and Kerith were the project man­agers, Mary Anne Mor­gan was the amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­pher and I was the art direc­tor /​ J.V. pho­tog­ra­pher. I’d shoot some but really it was to frame the scene and and col­lab­o­rate with Mary Anne. She had the best lenses to cap­ture everything.

On the last day, after the shoot was offi­cially over, we headed out to din­ner to cel­e­brate. We took our time laugh­ing and telling sto­ries. It felt just like fam­ily. While we were there, Mary Anne took some pho­tos of Liz. I was obliv­i­ous to it until I hear her direct­ing me to stop talk­ing so she could get a good shot. I’m not a very good on the other side of the cam­era but her shots of us were amaz­ing.

Com­ing back to Osgood, I miss my team. We bonded together like any other sports team dur­ing train­ing. We began as indi­vid­u­als and ended as a team. I hope we get a chance to do it again.

This morn­ing, while we were in the office, Liz was talk­ing to me about… some­thing and I had to take her photo. The morn­ing light com­ing into the office was just per­fect. It’s been a while since I’ve got the cam­era out, and I’m glad I did.

This morn­ing we were headed to a funeral ser­vice for Jeff Jor­dan, Emily Rowland’s father. Thanks­giv­ing day, Emiliy and her hus­band, Justin, were with Emily’s fam­ily mak­ing din­ner with her par­ents. I’m unclear on the details but her dad had a mas­sive heart attack and died that day at the Mar­gret Mary Com­mu­nity Hos­pi­tal here in Batesville.

Although I didn’t know many of the peo­ple there, it was so mov­ing to hear peo­ple talk about Jeff. It was espe­cially hard for me to hear his wife talk about him. I’ve said the very same words and phrases that she did in describ­ing the grate­ful­ness for her spouse. I couldn’t help the tears on my face. Once the ser­vice was over, we paid our respects, spoke briefly with Justin and Emily Row­land and drove back to Osgood.

Dri­ving back, I was so grate­ful for Liz. Life is given by the Lord and nobody knows when our souls will be asked of us. I have all kinds of hopes and dreams for our future together. What would I do if she was taken away so sud­denly? I’m sure Jeff had hopes and dreams too. Now he stands with the great cloud of wit­nesses watch­ing his fam­ily from a far. I sit next to my wife and I’m so grate­ful. Live life to the best of your abil­ity to the glory of Jesus. It’s a life well-​​lived.