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What's in a name? that which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet-
This very old and famous passage from a very familiar play highlights the power of a name and the ability it has to define you, hinder you or set you free.
Why Sticks and Stones?
We all know the children's rhyme sticks and stones may break my bones but words can never hurt me. We all also know how very untrue this is-a rhyme meant to help children develop "thick skin" that is ultimately a lie seems an odd fit for a photography company's name!?
Full disclosure, the name came about in a moment of serendipity in a McDonald's play place as the result of Lizzie's son making an off hand comment about her purse (which had a scull and crossbones on it) looking like a pirate. This reminded her of that line from Pirates of the Caribbean "Sticks and stones love, I saved your life, you saved mine. We're square." That was followed by an aha moment resulting in what we have now adopted as our name.
This clairvoyant moment followed many hours of and a resulting break from trying to find a name because to us, finding something we liked-that had meaning was important. So why am I blabbering on about it right now? Well its funny to me the way that God works in us and for us whether we want him to and ask for it or we resist him and he just plans for the moment when it will finally came together for us.
This, us-it started out very different. We wanted to pursue photography but probably not for the right reasons-we wanted to make money and our own hours and really believed we could do it. Well nearly 2 years later we’ve not made a single dollar in money but what we have gained in life experience and understanding and direction are worth so much more than we ever could have hoped for. God has given Lizzie and I an incredible journey-one I cannot wait to share with you as this blog unfolds. We have had 17 years as friends filled with ups and downs and at the start of that story we were in very different places. As things have unfolded a photography company became an organization we created to help spread awareness for mental illness and domestic violence and now we’ve combined the two to create a very bright future.
You see at first we were so caught up with what we could do for ourselves we were missing the ability we had to really impact others, to bless them and brighten their day with this gift of precious memories. Then as it turns out we were so focused on what we could do for others we lost ourselves. Now it seems we’ve struck the perfect balance. God used our past and our problems and our shortcomings to show us a better focus and direction for our future. We are far from perfect and this journey is far from over but we continue to see signs of God’s plan and promise for us as we plan ahead with this new direction in mind. Even in our name-before we’d given a single thought to anything pertaining to working with the broken-we’d chosen a name that hovers so close to a popular reminder of being broken.
Seeing it now with our reframed goals in mind I delight at the detail of God. It’s a gift we gave ourselves that he gave us because it represents where we were-broken and hurting, trying to develop “thick skin,” and move beyond our painful reality to this place where we can look back and see that even though it hurt, even though it was hard, we were healed, transformed and made anew because of the power and love of a living God.
We are truly happy to be here with our plan for serving and giving back. We want to reach and impact people in powerful ways by giving to them and gaining from them more than money can buy.
2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come.