I’ve had something on my heart these last few days. This is a Personal Reflection post, and I would love to hear your thoughts. It’s a long one, as most Personal Reflection posts are.

______________________________________________

Fear is in the air these days. It seems to loom over us like a socked in fog. The financial world is in turmoil, everywhere you go you hear of another nightmare that may unfold…gas prices rising, cost of food rising, election craziness…home values continuing to drop…friends facing foreclosure, bankruptcy. The list goes on and on.

Where do we get our peace during these times? We can pray, but what else can we do? How can a woman still have power when she feels so powerless? As one friend said this week, “I’m pregnant and can’t help bring in anymore money then what I’m already doing. I feel powerless!”

I was making scrambled eggs on Saturday morning. At the last minute, after I dished up the kids their eggs, I decided to add spinach leaves and crumbled feta. As I stood in the kitchen, cooking up the eggs, I remembered another morning I had made the same breakfast. But it was at least eight years ago. Before babies, before photography. And the breakfast wasn’t for me and Brian, it was for eight other women coming over.

At the time, I had been a part of a small women’s group that was connected to the church we were attending. This church was located in a wealthy area and thus, it had a lot of wealthy people attending. Brian and I…hmmm…let’s just say we were the other extreme of wealthy. We had nothing to our names. ZIPPO!

We were new to the church, so I decided to join a small group. These eight women would come together every third Saturday and take turns having breakfast at each other’s homes. I remember going to some of their homes, and I couldn’t help but notice the fact that

A) they owned a home and we were renting a dive for $350 a month and

B) how nice their homes were!

You would have thought I would stress about my upcoming turn to make breakfast at my home (the place my dad refereed to as the Crack House, since that’s what it looked like on the outside).

You would have thought I was dreading my Saturday morning.

But here’s the thing. I wasn’t. I knew where Brian and I were at in life because I knew where we had come from.

Brian and I had come through five years of incredible pain and trauma in our marriage. We had nothing financially. People often wondered how so much bad could happen to one couple, especially since we’d only been married four years. When we hit the fourth year of marriage, all our other friends were buying their first homes. But it wasn’t time for us. We were managing an apartment complex and praying for a place with cheap rent so we could stop managing. We just wanted a place that was quiet and affordable. A place to call our own. This little $350 Crack House was the place we found, and I loved it. No rent to collect, toilets to unplug. Just us.

I remember standing at the stove that morning eight years ago. Any minute now the eight women would be showing up for breakfast. I put out my best tablecloth. A bought a bunch of tulips at the grocery store. I set out my special teacups and saucers with silver spoons. I was enjoyed every detail; a basket full of teas, baking homemade blueberry muffins, a fresh fruit salad and then my scrambled eggs with feta and spinach. With candles lit, I welcomed the women into my home–my dwelling place. And because I knew this place was a gift to us, in the time of life we were surviving, I couldn’t help but smile wide as I hosted these women.

When I remembered this breakfast, I was reminded of a truth that has helped me through many uncertain times. The truth being that I have the power to create something from nothing. I can take an ugly house and make it my own beautiful space. How? because beauty comes from within me. I know…so simple, yet for me, so profound….and so easy to lose sight of. Beauty doesn’t come from what I own, what I look like or don’t look like. None of the above. It simply comes from within–from my own deep wells of passion and imagination.

I want Pascaline to hear this story when she is older. I’m sure she will feel the pressure at some point to buy a home or buy a better this or better that as her peers have. But beautiful houses don’t equal an inviting home. And I believe wholeheartedly, that no matter how dire the circumstances, how little money there is for groceries or gas money, that there is something a woman cannot lose. She cannot lose her ability to create beauty from nothing. She cannot lose her imagination that makes the powerless powerful.

A woman can take a run down shack and make it the most inviting home anyone has ever been to. She can enrich people with her laughter, with her fragrant smells that creep out of the kitchen and tickle your nose. She can light a few candles, offer you coffee or tea and you feel like your being waited on as if you were a king or queen. A woman’s home is her magical refuge. She can open her door and invite you to take a break from the storm, and no matter how much money she has or doesn’t have, she can make her home a healing place.

In times like this, when everything is uncertain, remind yourself of the power you have to create, to make magic, to comfort and feed the soul of someone who has forgotten their own abilities. In times like this, if we have the strength, we must open our door and entertain a desperate soul who has forgotten her own power, her own beauty. Forget about picking the toys up. Forget about having an empty sink.

Even today, I had a woman over who is struggling. Her struggle is very deep. Her fears are incredibly valid. The financial market could change their lifestyle dramatically. I had toys everywhere, homeschool papers all over the table, and dishes from Saturday still in the sink. But I didn’t care because I knew her desperation felt far more dirty and uncomfortable than how she’d feel with my dirty dishes.

I lit some candles and made some tea. We let the kids play. I listened, asked questions and listened some more. My prayer was that she’d remember how power-full she is, despite how powerless the current times have us feeling.

My heart’s cry is that she would reconnect with that part of her that can create beauty, magic and laughter from nothing. This is something the financial state can never take from a woman. This is a power we will always possess.

Have you lost site of this power lately? Do you know others who have? What can you do to regain it?

Do you know where you are at in life? Where have you come from? Sometimes I answer these two questions to help me remember that where I am is exactly where I’m supposed to be.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________

To see our day job , visit here.

For more fun photo exercises, check out our popular Instructional DVDs Refuse to Say Cheese , our 101 Kits for starting or expanding a business in photography, click on the words of your choice! The Chicago Workshop is sold out. But the December Workshop has a few spots left. Click here to see details!