Connie - United States Of America

Nickname: gentle_leader

God loves me so much! I was born into a family with strong moral values where my father farmed, and the work ethic was strong. However as a child, I knew there were problems in my parents’ marriage. So to escape the arguments and the total silence, I found comfort outdoors. I remember talking to God even though, at the time, I knew nothing of what it meant to have a personal relationship with Him. One day, I attempted to take all my personal possessions and leave home.

My two brothers and I attended a one-room elementary school where there were only a few students. Friendships were of short duration because families moved often. As the social relationships in my life continued to be insecure and uncertain, I started high school. I was shy, and I experienced more loneliness because I lacked confidence.

I met my husband when I was 16, and soon after we began dating, John started talking to me about the Lord. We dated for my remaining two years of high school and married after my first two years in college. As our friendship grew over those four years, the two of us often spoke of the family we wanted to have. We were unsure what it would look like. We only knew we wanted our family to be different from the two we had known.

After we had been married three months, we moved to Missouri where John began graduate school. One night after a meeting of an evangelical nature, a woman named Pam approached me and asked me to meet with her to talk about spiritual things. Several days later, we met over coffee and talked for a long time. I remember Pam asked me if I knew Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior. I also remember taking offense at her question because until then, I believed salvation was based on what I could do to earn it; and I had never really dealt with the sin in my life.

Through Pam, God showed me there is a difference between “a religion” and having “a relationship” with his Son. I never saw Pam again. Yet soon after that meeting, my husband and I attended a retreat in Kansas City. While we were there, I knelt down on the floor of the hotel room and asked Jesus to come into my life. I was 20.

After John graduated, each time we moved we visited churches until we found one where the pastor said he shared the same personal relationship with Christ that we did. As a couple and individually, we began to grow spiritually as the two of us became friends with other believers, and we started to read and study God’s Word for ourselves.

Four and eight years later, God blessed our marriage with two daughters. As Jennifer and Melissa were born, John and I recognized the large responsibility we faced as parents and that we could not raise the girls without God’s help. So we always tried to make Christ the center of our home. When problems arose, we prayed about them; and we repeatedly told our children we loved them unconditionally.

When Jesus came into my life, He answered my deepest need to find fulfillment. He replaced my shyness with a confidence that He had brought me into the world for a purpose, and it is by His design that I am here. I am His creation as expressed in Ephesians 2:10: “For we are God’s workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Most of all, I know that when this life is over, I will spend Eternity with Him.

As far as my interest in photography…well, it began in 1986 when I interviewed photographers for different corporate requests and soon saw a creative side to their work. As I would accompany them on assignment, I began learning and applying their photographic skills to my style of photography; and I always asked questions about why they did what they did. I enjoy taking photographs that capture the beauty of the world God has made.