Mary Anne Morgan Blog

Recently I acquired all of these beautiful colored bottles for an upcoming shoot I am setting up. When I saw them sitting on the table together like this, I heard the line above in my head. “Don’t ask for just a few”. It is part of a story in scripture in 2Kings chapter 4 where a desperate woman approached the prophet Elisha and begged him for help. She was widowed and in debt, and the creditors were coming to take her sons away as payment. Pretty traumatic.

Elisha answers her plea with a strange question. “ Tell me, what do you have in your house?” She explains that she has nothing, except for a little oil. That was enough for Elijah. He then instructed her to go and ask her neighbors for empty jars. “Don’t ask for just a few”, he adds imperatively. She is then instructed to shut the door behind her and begin pouring her oil into the jars, and keep pouring until all the jars are full. The oil flowed until the vessels were gone. When she was done, she had enough oil to pay her debtors and then live off the rest. I wonder if she had wished she had asked for more. We tend to limit God by what we think we can have, rather than what we think He can give.

Thank God, I am not widowed or in jeopardy of creditors taking my children as payment, but I can relate to this business of collecting vessels to be filled with God’s provision, especially with provision that He has already given, like the widow’s small portion of oil. (What do you have in your house? I know I  have photography for one.)

These vessels, these glass bottles, somehow represent that beautiful picture to me. God is always about filling our containers with His blessings, His glory. It is up to us to bring the cup. He is the drink, the oil, the blessing that we need.

Making time for Him is like bringing Him a colored bottle to fill. Holding it up to Him, empty and shining in His light, we wait for Him.

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him.” Psalm 37:7.  Sigh. That scripture is a constant reminder for me these days. He is the filler. We are the vessel. The brightly colored bottle longing to be filled with His glory.

So, in an effort to make the truths I was feeling seem more tangible, I went out to find the glory to fill my bottles. The Zinnias were happy to help.  I think they were waiting for the opportunity.

When you get your vessels, don’t ask for just a few. I mean, how much do you want?

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I tell her she is beautiful, and ask her to feel it from within. That is where it is. Inside. The glory God has given her as a woman. I turn my head and and adjust the backdrop that will not cooperate with me. I fluff the chiffon and tape up the velvet.

When I return there is a small but valuable tear sliding down her luminous cheek. I pause and frown. “What is it honey?” I ask. But I already know. I know because I feel it too, as has many if not most women on the planet. We don’t believe it. We don’t embrace it. We’re beautiful, and we don’t know it. She stutters to try to explain, and and I hold her head in my hands and pray for her and speak words of blessing. This is easy because she is mine. She is my Katie. I tell her who she is, who God says she is, and  that it is okay to be beautiful. We don’t have to be afraid of it. It is our glory as women. It is our gift. Our softness, our inner passion. Our resolve to love.

We change the music and we laugh. I see her shining now. My Katie. It is okay to be beautiful. It is how God made you.

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I am so excited about this new project I am working on with Alison Johnson. She is the creator and designer of Parbella, a beautiful new children’s clothing line, that I have fallen in love with! I met Alison while shopping for my new Imac. ( A very good day!)  She was taking a cookie break with her beautiful daughter, Isabella, across the hall from the Apple Store at  The Kneaded Perk and I was getting my usual coffee fix. I couldn’t help but be drawn to her and her beautiful daughter, Isabella. They were so precious together! I introduced myself , as I am prone to do, and we got to chatting. When I found out that she designed children’s clothing I was intrigued and asked her if she had a photographer yet.  She said that she had been doing all of her own shooting and it was getting to be too much for her.

I was excited! I have been considering a change of direction with my photography for awhile, and I loved the thought of focusing primarily on children, especially for a specific designer.  I asked her about her clothing line, and told her a bit about what I do. We exchanged business cards and and said our goodbyes. Not long after, we began to exchange emails and make plans to experiment together on a project or two. I am so excited! She got her samples in for her Spring line, and I have the opportunity to show them to the world! I am in the middle of lining up models right now. I need sweet little girls in sizes 3T and 6.

These dresses are stunning and the fabrics are divine. I am not going to give too much away, but here are a few sneak peeks at what I have hanging up at my house.:) If you have a little girl in your house, you are going to love these! More to come soon!!!

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How could this not be my favorite photo this week? This is my freckled-sunshine-Annie girl. Those Hydrangeas were just begging to bring out the blue in her eyes. She begrudgingly posed for this. I was in the middle of another shoot, and she was in the middle of working on one of her two summer jobs. I held the soft petals against her face and said a name of someone she holds dear. We won’t say whom. All I can say is she lost her resolve to make me stop, and gave me a soft and pensive smile. She told me I cheated. Maybe I did. Look what I got? Magic. My summer girl.

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Last week Chris and I celebrated 23 years together as husband and wife. I can’t believe how quickly time has gone by. I can always count our years together by our eldest daughter’s age as she is one year younger than we are married. We got her as a surprise from our Father God. We were not planning on babies for a while. Chris didn’t have a steady job and we had no health insurance. I was planning on finishing college and he was going to school for his Masters of Divinity. God of course, had His own plans, and I am so thankful. I had moved away from most of my family. I was 21 and pregnant and newly married. Yes, I was afraid and bewildered. My pastor’s wife told me something at the time  I have never forgotten. She told me  that “God never orders anything He can’t pay for.” This and her calm resolve brought me peace and I rested in that truth on more than one occasion.  The rest, you might say, is history. We got out beautiful curly haired Katie, then our Annie, and then our John. Later, at 40, I was blessed with another surprise. I was pregnant with my fifth (the fourth lost in miscarriage much earlier) child. We ended up losing him at 16 weeks gestation. We named him Benjamin and he is forever a Morgan child.

But alas, I digress from my original story of Chris and me. We met at my sister Liza’s wedding, having been not-so-secretly set up by Liza and her husband and Chris’s best friend, Mickey. I met him the night before the wedding, July 1, 1986. We were married just a year later on July the 3rd 1987. Katie was born April of 1988. God moves quickly sometimes.

There was so much to love about this man. He was a modern day Huck Finn, so simple and yet so profound in his thinking. I found peace in those beautiful blues. I loved to hear him sing and play his guitar. He was like no one I had ever known. We got lost in conversation, talking about all things spiritual, God and who He is, about Love and what it looked like (not realizing I was falling right into it), and about anything that we felt had real value. We laughed often. Our senses of humor aligning so perfectly. We walked on railroad tracks, in the rain, and through paths in the woods not knowing where we would end up. It was an adventure. He had me and I didn’t even know it. Once again, I had my own plans, but God’s plan prevailed. So thankful.

So on this eve of our anniversary, we once again had a spontaneous adventure together. We decided to go somewhere new and eat some sushi together at Ra Sushi in Atlanta. A wonderful choice! We sat outside in the evening air and enjoyed conversation and delicious food together. A dragonfly decide to join us.

Later we went exploring, just like in the our old days. We walked the streets of Atlanta and went to Piedmont Park, stopping for some refreshment at Willy’s Mexicana Grill. The light faded into the night and the city lights began to glow. We both felt free, talking about things that mattered and laughing about things that didn’t.

On the way home, he took me to my favorite coffee place, Octane Coffee. He doesn’t drink coffee. He loves me. My cappuccino had a heart in it when I got to the bottom. “How fitting”, I thought to myself and made him hold the cup for me until I got the shot I wanted.

No matter what, my heart is his. I gave it to him 23 years ago.

Our last adventure of the night was to go for a midnight swim in our pool. We lit the twinkly lights and set up candles and torches around the pool and played some of our favorite music. I got in the pool with my camera for some of the shots, and he was patient with my photojournalistic tendencies. Then we danced in water. We didn’t talk for a long time. The cicadas sang their song. It was a good night to be married for 23 years.

His eyes are still just as blue. I still find peace there. Now that our kids are nearly grown, I hope we continue our adventures together, laughing and talking, and kissing, and dancing. He is my love.

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This really can’t count as a favorite photo of the week, because I haven’t posted one in weeks. It is, however one of my favorites from this week. I love Zinnias. They are so happy and dependable. Chris and I planted a row of these when he planted the summer vegetable garden. I still remember us sprinkling the delicate seeds into the rocky farm soil we inherited on this land. It was nearly dark and we planted them by flashlight just before an evening walk. Now, they stand as beacons of hope on the edge of the withering garden. I can almost hear them giggling sometimes, as if in conversation. They always cheer my heart. My love and I planted them together, and once again, we are reaping what we have sown. So glad we sowed joy.

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This is from a piece of artwork that was on the wall where we stayed in Colorado last week. It stopped me in my tracks on more than one occasion. I am familiar with this verse from Matthew 7: 7-8. Too familiar, I think. Some truths are spoken or read so many times that we forget their validity and value. As I pondered this idea of asking, I  began to try to ask God for things in my own life. After a few words, I stalled out. “Father, will you …?”, and then silence. My heart grew quiet and I began to question my motives. Religious voices moved in. Thoughts of what I “should” ask for trumped the gentle voice of my spirit. I quickly moved on to something else, knowing I would have to come back to this.

That very same day, in our explorations of a nearby resort, we came upon a fountain. Chris smiled at me and handed me a coin. “Make a wish”. I took the coin, not even thinking about it and faced the pool. ” I wish…”, and again, nothing. The waters in my own heart too murky to know what to ask for. I immediately connected it to the moment in front of the scripture on the wall earlier in the day.  This asking/wishing thing was getting much more complicated than it should have been. I could not merely toss in a coin and breathe out desires at the same time. It seemed too much was at stake.

I think. Hmm, I think. ( too much). God cares for our hearts, our desires. We however, are in the business of trying to please Him. How much joy does it bring us to give to our own children? What if one of my kids came up to me and said, “Mom, I really would like some lunch, but I realize you are so busy and that bread costs a lot, and there are so many people in the earth that are hungry. So Mom, could we forget my original question and sit and pray for those who are hungry?” Kind of ridiculous. My heart would leap at being able to meet a need or a desire of one of my kids. They don’t have to think through it for me first. I am the mom. Yet, we do this to God all the time. We steal His pleasure by being over-religious. We decide for Him what is acceptable for us to have, rather than just throwing it out there. Why?

• Asking requires risk. What if we put it out there and God tells us no? What if we reveal our hearts and God ignores us?  What if we search our hearts and don’t find anything worthwhile there?
• Asking requires that we know our own hearts. Most of us don’t know what we really want. This requires time. Time alone with God, the Holy Spirit who searches and knows the hearts of us all. We have to allow the silence to reveal the desires that move through the hallways of our inmost being. I believe God places those desires there like hidden treasure, just so He can leap at the chance to meet them when we surrender them up to  His Holy Hands. He is our greatest advocate and lover of our souls.
• Asking requires us to relinquish control. When we choose to let go of the reigns of our lives and ask God for help, joy, relief, that new pair of shoes or whatever it is our hearts desire, we admit that we cannot do it alone. We admit that only He can satisfy us. That He will bring rest to our restlessness and discontent if we risk it all and breathe out our inquiries, and toss the coin.

“You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand.” ~ Psalm 16:11

Tossing my coin soon…

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Sometimes things just work like magic. I knew we might get to see our dearly loved friend, Dan Self, on our Colorado vacation last week. What I didn’t know was that he was planning to ask  his beautiful girl, Amy, to marry him that same week. When we met him for lunch in Glenwood Canyon, he told us the exciting news. My next words were, “Hey, you need an engagement shoot!”. Never before have I done an engagement shoot on such short notice and with no planning at all. It was bliss. They came to visit us the day after their engagement, and after answering all our excited questions and some ice cream at the local Marble Slab Creamery, we found some railroad tracks and a river surrounded by glorious mountains. (Only in Colorado).

I had so much fun! And the Cottonwoods! I had never seen Cottonwood trees before, and they were releasing their beautiful cotton-like floaties into the air. It looked like a fairy tale. Once again I put Johnny to work and he jumped into the nearest tree and shook it to make it look more glorious! We were all yelling, “Shake it, Johnny!”. So funny. So magical. So fun.

Be blessed and happy Dan and Amy! I hope to see you and Colorado again VERY soon!  :)

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