February 1, 2012



  • A PORTRAIT SESSION GIVEAWAY!

    Visit my Facebook Events Page at
    Mary Hurlbut ~Laguna Beach Photographer
    to find out more about the contest!

    Starts Feb 7th with the winners announced on
    Valentine’s Day~ Feb 14th 2012

January 31, 2012

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    My Secure Place:

    “I will be with you ALWAYS”
    Matthew 28:20

    7. Unexpected blessings, new books given to me by friends.

    8. “Grace for the Moment” a daily devotional by Max Lucado
    from my sister Jenny

    9. “Made to Crave” by Lysa Terkeurst
    Satisfying my deepest desire with God, not food
    from Kori

    10. “Finding a Mentor; Being a Mentor” by Donna Otto
    Sharing our lives as women of God
    from Zoe

    11. “Sexy Forever” by Suzanne Somers
    How to fight fat after forty, shed the toxins.
    from Anne

    12. and learning today: His Grace is sufficient

January 30, 2012


  • “When she accepted the challenge of listing one thousand things she loves,
     Ann found that learning to see and name
     the beauty and blessings around her led to thankfulness.
    Thankfulness led to trust in a loving, faithful Father,
    and that trust led to Joy.“


    From a review of Ann Voskamp’s book
    “One Thousand Gifts”


    1.  So very thankful for 30 years of marriage to my husband Spence this month

    2.  Praise God for holding us together through hard trials

    3. Thank you for blessing us with art careers that allowed us to stay home
    and raise our daughter Bri.

    4. Simple things, like the chair in the photo. Found it on the side of the road
     for the trash pick up. It’s the perfect modeling chair for my home studio.

    5. Thanks for Spence’s skill in building, the expanded living room and large windows
    has created the perfect spot for a portrait studio

    6. God is my true Comfort

January 27, 2012

  • A Golden Hour

     

     

     

     



    A busy day, many things accomplished,
    but part of me was watching the sun get lower and lower in the sky,
    feeling the dry, warm Santana winds,
    and knowing there was a northwest swell...

    I made my way to Oak Street, a local’s favorite,
    to photograph the beauty of this hour before sunset.













January 24, 2012

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    “Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God”

    Job 37:14


January 20, 2012

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    Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you,
    which you have from God, and that you are not your own?
    For you were bought with a price; therefore glorify God in your body.

    1 Corinthians 6:19-20

    In the time when this scripture was written, temples were places that were thought of as so holy that they were perfectly maintained. Many people thought that God literally lived in the temple, so they took time to preserve this beautiful, physical space. Similarly, this passage talks about how we can take care of our bodies like temples. Since the Holy Spirit wants to be with us, we should make the best choices we can with our bodies. When we think of our bodies as being holy from God, this can inspire us to make better decisions.

    Stephanie Ezell
    Dear God, thank you for sending Jesus as your son, and for the Holy Spirit among us.
    Help me to honor you, as a result, in my body as well as spirit. Amen.

    http://www.d365.org/todaysdevotion/

January 18, 2012



  • To Create

    What does it take to bring something into being,
    something that simply did not exist?
    Can you imagine a time “before time?”

    The God we worship is not concerned about such constraints;
    God works totally outside our perceptions of time and space.

    This is the God who awaits you now in quietness.
    Seek the freedom to be in touch with your Creator.

        

    Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
    And God saw that the light was good;
    and God separated the light from the darkness.
    God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night.
    And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.

    Genesis 1:3-5


    Imagine that first moment light came to be. All I can equate it to is going into a room
    in the middle of the night and clicking the light on, only to be blinded momentarily.

    God did this from nothingness. God spoke light into being from the darkness.
    Does light still require creativity?
    Sure, Thomas Alva Edison had to be creative to create the light bulb,
    but let’s think for a minute about creating light from darkness.
    Light and darkness take many forms, especially using them to describe situations.
    Human trafficking is darkness. Disease due to unclean drinking water is darkness.
    War orphans live in darkness.

    Creativity is a light in several ways.
    God gives you passion, gifts, and talents to share light in the world.
    One way to use creativity is to shed light in places where darkness reigns.
    Another is to be creative in finding solutions.
    Creativity gives you unlimited ways to be Christ’s presence in the world.

    ~Brian Foreman

      Jesus, God of Light and Creation, thank you for creating me to think, act, and create.
    My prayer is that You continue to direct me in ways that use my gifts and passions
    to share Your Light with the world. Amen.

    Creator God we sing, a hymn of joy we’re making;

    Our grateful love we bring, as the new day’s light is breaking.

    God made the sea and land; the sun and stars came rolling

    From God’s own loving hand, their Creator’s love extolling. Alleluia, alleluia!

    From “Cantemos al Creador” by Carlos Rosas


    Expressions of the creative spirit come through song, through fine art, through poetry and drama.
    Expressions of God’s creative spirit are found in
    sunsets, mountain ranges, rushing rivers,
    and the pattern on the back of a turtle’s shell.

    Take a moment to experience and appreciate the creative spirit of God,
    who weaves together colors, sounds, tastes, and smells
    with laughter, voices, prototypes, and music.
    While God created from the void, we create from what God has made
    and what God has given us the ability to imagine.

    The psalmist expressed appreciation through praise of God.
    God is credited with strength, glory, and graciousness.
    All things are given by God to the people of God.

    Read the words of the psalm aloud and imagine the sounds and sights
    used to describe the power, majesty and awe known to be God.
    Ultimately, David’s prayer of blessing is that God give God’s people strength and peace
    for the journey that is life.

    ~Brian Foreman

    “Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

    Ascribe to the Lord the glory of his name; worship the Lord in holy splendor.

    The voice of the Lord is over the waters; the God of glory thunders,
    the Lord, over mighty waters.

    The voice of the Lord is powerful; the voice of the Lord is full of majesty….

    The Lord sits enthroned over the flood; the Lord sits enthroned as king forever.

    May the Lord give strength to his people! May the Lord bless his people with peace!”


    Psalm 29:1-4,10-11

     God of glory, I pray for the peace that You give.
    I pray for the strength that is Yours and worship You
    in the splendor of the created order around me.
    For in You all things were, are, and ever will be. Amen!

    Photos taken in our home in the bright, morning sunlight
    with excerpts from
    http://www.d365.org/todaysdevotion/

     

January 7, 2012


  • “But when the fullness of time had come,
    God sent his Son,
    born of a woman, born under the law,
    in order to redeem those who were under the law,
     so that we might receive adoption as children.

    And because you are children,
    God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts,
    crying, “Abba! Father!”
    So you are no longer a slave but a child,
    and if a child then also an heir,
    through God.”

    Galatians 4:4-7

    Abba Father, I give thanks for You this day
    as I bask in the knowledge that I am heir to Your eternal kingdom
    and that the Spirit of Your Son lives in my heart.
    Amen.

January 6, 2012

  • On the 12th Day of Christmas…

    *Many Christians celebrate the Epiphany in remembrance of the wisemen arriving to worship
     and bring gifts to the Christ Child. I like how Ann Voskamp applied it to my life today:

    “Epiphany, it means “the manifestation of God.”

    Where did the God-Child reveal Himself but in the barn and this is the grace: Our God manifests Himself in our mangers and muck, our mundane and mess.

    Ours is the God manifesting Himself in the unlikely and unbearable, in the surprise and the second-chance. The God Who bears the burdens and brings the hope.

    And when what we really needs is an Epiphany in all the dark — doesn’t the epiphany begins simply by seeing the light of God everywhere? Maybe what the New Year needs more than resolutions is a fresh revelation of God?”


             

     


    I found God’s radiant light and joy
    later in the morning while photographing the storm surf
     He had created miles away from our coast
    AND
    in the fellowship of with other Laguna locals
    also out with their cameras at the same time.

    *No Epiphany Open House this year, too warm and Bri was busy, so I called Sharon Crowley
     and we met at an outdoor cafe for lunch. We talked and talked, two hours flew by. We home-schooled our together so we love catching up with what our kids, now young adults, are doing and how these have changed over the years.

    *Next I went to Staples to purchase much needed book calendars, one for my photography business and the other for our family/life dates. I need a hard copy to look at daily or I’d forget things!

    *Since I had to drive right by Jenny’s home, I dropped by unannounced, and got to see all their sweet Christmas ornaments and enjoy the smell of their tree which had dried out in the heat we’ve had the last week. David was cuddled up on the couch and when Bob arrive home from work he gave me a back rub just because.

    *I then stopped at Aaron Brother’s to purchase frames at the 2 for 1 sale, before crossing the parking lot and shopping at Trader Joes….I fell to temptation and bought a box of Peppermint Joes too!

    *Such a full day. Spence and I later enjoyed watching old movies on TMC by the light of our Christmas tree.  Thank you Father God.

January 5, 2012

  • On the 11th Day of Christmas…

    *I want to remember “…our faith is expressed only in our habits.“
          May we learn “A habit of not complaining, but the habit of giving thanks;
      the habit of not worrying, but a habit worshiping.
      The habit of repeatedly giving God praise
      that our lives might become a prayer. “
                                                  ~Ann Voskamp

    *I brought mom a latte from Laguna Coffee Co.
    We sat out on the deck enjoying the blue-green sea surging on the rocks
     and unseasonably warm weather.
    Then I helped undecorated her Christmas tree before carrying it up to the garage till next year.

    *Argh…I seem to be fighting a virus, a headache that comes and goes, aches and pain in my hands and back. I spent the afternoon resting, even taking a nap.

    *Good Night Everyone