A year or more ago…maybe two…I had an idea.
I suppose I could be categorized as a creative person, and while I don’t paint or sew or craft, when my heart feels something big, I yearn to DO something about it. To express it, somehow.
Most often, I do this through writing, occasionally I do it with a party, but every once in awhile, another outlet comes along that quenches my thirst for expression.
For many years now, I have been keeping up with the work of a young man who grew up behind me. He is a visual storyteller and, though his business title would probably fall under the “videographer” category, I marveled-from-afar at the talent of an artist in him, and eagerly watched every video he put out for the university he attended, and then for the weddings he filmed. They were amazing!!!
And somewhere along the way, a dream sprang up in my heart, and a twofold yearning could be found therein:
- I wanted to make something really special for my family that would express my love for them.
- I wanted to help Clinton exercise his talents and perhaps find another customer-base for his business: families.
The wedding industry is huge, yes? Americans have poured countless dollars into this one special event in a person’s life, and we don’t feel our day is complete without all the must-haves: an amazing dress, great food, an impressive cake, special music and, perhaps most importantly (or at least right behind the dress), a photographer and/or videographer.
It’s so important to us to have proof that our day existed, and to memorialize it somehow.
But…
what about life after the wedding?
What about the sacred space where our families are planted and take bloom?
What about the years after we make our vows – the years of intense spiritual growth and personal maturity – when God goes on to use the groom, and then perhaps the offspring we share, to sanctify us and help us to know Him better?
There might be a nitty-grittiness to marriage that is not there on the wedding day, but I’m a firm believer that the beauty of the union in its everyday state is so worth capturing and celebrating.
Granted, we do take a ton of pictures, most of us. You can scroll through i-photo on my desktop and get a pretttty good idea of what our family has done almost daily for the last ten years!! 🙂
But videos are different. They allow you to see how your loved ones move. How they walk. How they laugh, from start to finish. How their mouths form words. How they hop off the bottom stair with gusto after walking carefully down the others. (that will make sense later).
And so, with all these ideas swimming around in my brain, I contacted Clinton with a crazy request: please, please, PRETTY PLEASE, come to our house and make a day-in-the-life video?!?!
PLEASE?!?!
I’ll spare you all the wordy details of our back-and-forth discussion that took place for months, trying to figure out how to even make this WORK – the equipment it takes to film a wedding video is crazy expensive, and it took some mulling-over to figure out how to truncate things in a way that we could afford – and, instead, I’ll just tell you that this project that was on again and off again for a long time was, out of nowhere in early May, brainstormed, planned, executed and DONE.
We went from scheduling an appointment to having the finished product in our hands in a matter of weeks!
And here’s what we had finally ended up settling on: a collection of recorded events that would paint a true picture of what our family does on a regular basis. We filmed a morning scene, with the kids actually eating breakfast. We recorded our morning Bible study in the schoolroom. We did our read-aloud. We played the piano and sang together. We had lunch. We played with toys. We went for a walk. Basically, we did everything we could think of that we do regularly enough that our kids wouldn’t watch the video someday and feel like they were watching a Pinterest version of our life.
The ONLY things, in fact, that weren’t realistic in our “movie” are as follows: 1. My house was SPOTLESS. There are usually parts of our house that are clean and tidy, but never the entire thing at one time! 2. I wore real clothes and shoes (I couldn’t let my cadaver feet be shared on the internet, I just couldn’t). 3. I was awake before everyone. In a truly genuine representation of our life, I would wake up with at least three kiddos playing recess on the bed around me.
Other than that, this was a pretty normal day in our neck of the woods! Minus the whole guy-with-a-camera thing.
So then, after we had finished with all the film and put Sheppy down for his nap, Mr. Gore, Clinton and I closed ourselves up in the schoolroom and made an audio recording of me reading a letter I had written for my family.
Which was, like, TORTURE for me. But that’s another story for another day.
And just like that, five hours and three wardrobe changes after we had started, we were done, and Clinton was on his way with a major piece of my heart stuck on a memory card.
I didn’t realize how accustomed I am to being the chief of my own creativity. Collaboration is super fun, but it takes a lot of trust. Thankfully, I put my trust in a guy who knows his stuff, and then some. And then some MORE.
Before I share the video, I want to take a minute to share with you what a meaningful experience this turned out to be for me. It was staggering, really…
The way the Lord put these specific heavy words and emotions on my heart the month our video ended up taking place.
The way Clinton messaged me with a request that I write something up for a voice-over a DAY after I had “coincidentally” been writing a mental letter in my head to my family.
The way no one was sick and nothing happened to postpone our appointment. (I can’t even tell you how rarely that happens!!!).
I don’t put a lot of stock in my own discernment, but when it was all said and done, this entire project felt very incredibly Spirit-led and sovereignly-timed and, as a result, what had begun as a neato idea to memorialize my loved ones became something quite spiritual.
Thus, the entire week preceding our film day, that two-fold desire I’d had in the beginning was daily growing and morphing into something far greater…
I was VERY SURE that I didn’t just want to do this for my family, or for Clinton, anymore.
I wanted to do this for moms.
For people who, like me, have seen their childish dreams of fame and fortune crumble into chaff under the weighty glory of life at home.
For the dignity of family.
For the sanctity of human life, and for the scores of aborted children who never got a chance to say “I’m important! I’m WORTH it!!”
For my amazing Creator-God who knits together a people who are fearfully and wonderfully made and who, for some crazy reason, put four of them into my care.
And, oh, my dears, although I remained critical of all those personal things about me that I don’t love during my first viewing of the finished video, by the time I had finished my second viewing, there were tears of love and joy and motherhood streaming down my face.
I didn’t care what my “baby” voice sounded like (that’s an inside Facebook joke!) and what I looked like, ever. I could have had a big zit on my forehead. Or my muffin top could have been hanging over my jeans. Who cares??? This was what I had wanted to tell my family, this is how I wanted to capture them, this is what I wanted to DO for the One who created us!!!
And Clinton, the little stinker, was even more of an artist than I had initially realized: he had seen and put together things that I had not even DREAMED of, joining words and film and music into a beautiful and fluid medley that took all the things that had been on my heart and sent them heavenward in an act of genuine worship.
UMMM…CAN YOU TELL I’M EXCITED?!?!?!
When we shared the finished video on Facebook last week, I was feeling a LOT of things…
Scared — I was offering up a huge part of myself here and was mostly just hoping to be handled with care.
Hopeful — I REALLY wanted some people to see and appreciate Clinton’s work.
Excited — I was looking forward to a typical handful of shares from people who like our family and some sweet comments from those who enjoy things like this; I was excited to bring some light into their day, which is one of my favorite things to shoot for.
What I was NOT EXPECTING was the feedback that we ended up receiving. In fact, I was rather blown away.
The video seemed to hit a nerve, of sorts, solidifying deep feelings in the hearts of so many moms who have found unexpected joy in giving up their lives for the ones they’ve been entrusted with. Before the day was up, my Facebook newsfeed was full of our video, shared over and over again by friends and relatives who saw themselves in this SAME story and whose heartstrings were tugged by the reminder that their family is worth living and dying for.
{Sidenote: that nerve apparently ran a different direction over at Youtube, among those who do not see children and motherhood and family as “worth it”, further proof to me that this was, indeed, a spiritual act that engaged a spiritual battle. We witnessed some major darkness as a result of this project!}
And now, one week later, my emotions have settled into something far less complex: I’m just happy. Happy to have spent a day doing something that the Lord had convicted me of. Happy to have helped other mamas and daddies have a fresh perspective. Happy that Clinton’s work was so lovingly noted and applauded.
Happy to have taken a moment in time to tell my family — and my God — how I REALLY feel about them. For our time together is so short…
Before I tuck this video away into our collection of mementos and keepsakes, I’m offering it here today to my blog readers, in the hopes that it will remind you of what you’re doing in the trenches of home life, that you will see your children and your husbands and wives with renewed love, and that you will remember once more that this job you are doing of washing feet and wiping bottoms and making food…
it’s really, really important.
It’s eternal.
And it is so totally, completely, 100% worth it.
God bless you, as you raise up a family for the glory of God and for the spread of His Kingdom. I’m cheering for you, my brothers and sisters, from our little white house on a hill. ❤
~
For more information on Clinton and ARETÉ Videography & Photography LLC, to discuss an idea for visual storytelling, or to book him for a wedding or a family video of your own, click here (and tell him I sent you and what you thought of his video!). I personally think it would also be awesome to do this same format, but write a letter to your high school senior doing their favorite things, intermixed with the typical scenes of them standing in front of old trucks and walking down railroad tracks and moseying through fields…you know, senior stuff! It would be such a beautiful tribute!
Okay, I’ll be quiet now, although I have a thousand more “visual storytelling” ideas. 😉 Thank you SO much for watching our video (and listening to me go on and on about it!). If you want to keep in touch and hear daily funnies or encouragement, join us on the Facebook. ❤
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