At one point, I left the family and took a walk down the beach.  I guess it wasn’t much, maybe about 10 minutes, down the beach and back.

I can tell you this:

Take your 10 minutes and enjoy the beauty God has surrounded you with.  It might as well have been 10 hours.  I felt refreshed and had a feeling of true PEACE.

Find that spot for you and bask in the glory God provides.

God has blessed me immensely that I get to spend my life with this woman!

Chaya is an awesome kid.  What does she look forward to the most about moving to Hawaii?  Daddy getting involved with a church again so she can go .

That’s Daddy’s girl!

I don’t upload the pics below to trash the person who took them.  They are all we have of our wedding day and I appreciate that.  Without them, we have nothing.  I can look past the eyes shut and the blur and the lighting…..because I know it’s all we have.  BUT (yes, again, a big ole BUT) DON’T DO THIS!  We had a professional photographer hired and decided to cancel him a day before the wedding, to save a few bucks.  HUGE MISTAKE.

I upload these pics so you, as an outsider, preparing to tie the knot, can see WHY you need NOT SKIMP ON MEMORIES.  You’ll regret it one day…..trust me.

Your wedding day will be no different from any other in that it’s just 24 hours, like every other day.  The actual wedding, from beginning to end, might last 12 hours.  I won’t mean much to you before the wedding and you won’t think of me much during, but after, I’M ALL YOU GOT.

The hours we spend during your special day and the HOURS upon HOURS we spend after, processing your pics, will show you precisely why you didn’t have aunt Edith take your pics with a 35mm disposable camera.

Trust us, as we have learned SEVERAL times over the past 11 years, money will come and go.  I have no idea what we spent that extra money on a decade ago.  That tells me it wasn’t all that important.

Don’t make the same mistake.  Call and talk to me about shooting your wedding.  10 years from now, you’ll be SO glad you did.

Let the countdown begin….90 days until I bring you some amazing shots from HAWAII!

Enjoy!  Click the shopping cart icon inside of the slideshow if you’re interested in downloading some images for screeensavers or desktop backgrounds.

Toby Keathley Photography will be Washington bound next week and on to Hawaii in July.

Happy shooting!

Had a great time and was really pleased with the results.

Here are a few highlights from the session.

Great couple, great wedding = GREAT photos!

I was also blessed to have some amazing help in the form of Michelle from PBM Digital Photography.  I couldn’t have done it without her.

Thank you all for a great day!

Enjoy some of my favorite shots from the day.

For the rest of you, hello, it’s been awhile.

As I have documented, several times, the past 8-10 months have been rough……REALLY rough.

As this deployment comes to a close and Ria is only a few days from being home for the first considerable visit (25 days) in a very long time, my mind is beginning to clear and I’m feeling reflective.

I stopped blogging awhile back.  At first, because I didn’t think I would have time, and eventually, because I lost every bit of desire to do so.

Almost a year later, I have learned…

While I do not NEED to blog, I KNOW how I have changed, and not for the better, without it.

Every day, I would struggle to have something positive and uplifting to say; something I was going through or had went through that I thought would help someone, in some way.

Every day, I would pour out my heart and while the words poured out, my heart absorbed them and I lived them.

Lessons:

• When the words meant to encourage others stopped, I stopped being encouraged.  Instead the stress and negativity of my daily life hardened my heart to, basically, what it was for the first 32 years of my life.
• It was so easy to tie into the previous lesson, how the Word….God’s Word…impacts my heart and my life.  I used to study His Word pretty consistently.  Most blog posts were derived from that study.  Again, when I left the Word, the Word left me.  No, of course God didn’t leave me, but I did indeed push Him out.  I had too much to worry about and didn’t have time for Him.  What a shame.
• It wasn’t until today that I realized how my words impacted lives.  During this deployment, I have not thought once about the daily comments, emails, twitter DM’s and Facebook messages I would receive from those impacted and from those offering support and encouragement for me.  I have had several offering support and encouragement since then, but not even close to how it was.  I miss that.
• There are lots of lessons, but none more important to me than this last one.  The people who know you….I mean REALLY know you and have known you for a long time…..You know, the people who knew the YOU before Christ entered your life???  I’m sure it’s not always the case, but I bet in most cases, those people are far more comfortable with the old you.  I can’t blame anyone for anything I do and I’m not about to start today, but I can tell you this:  Your friends from back then AND your family can present the biggest roadblocks in your Christian walk.  I went to Germany for 3 years, which made it a bit easier to become who I wanted to be, and more importantly, who I thought He wanted me to be.  But still, every phone call, email or visit with friends and family would bring out the old me.  It was much easier to be who I always had been rather than get the looks and attitude that came with being who I was around others.  What happens when you let that take place is during those times when God is distant (like an 8 month deployment) it’s MUCH easier and more comfortable to be THAT guy.

I still struggle today.  I cuss like a sailor around family.  I’m not going into specifics, but I’m a less than stellar role model when I’m around my 20 year old nephew.  That wasn’t the case back in what I’ll call The Blogging Days.  I was in the Word and the Word was in me.  My fire was bright and was not only seen by those who read this blog, but by those who would see me in person.  Yeah, I had my struggles and even more so around family, but I wasn’t this bad….like I am today.

And that’s the point of this blog post. Tomorrow doesn’t have to be a repeat of today.  We just have to choose the YOU we want to be remembered by.  The negative, foul-mouthed, instigator or the YOU that was built when Christ wiped your slate clean?  Luckily for us, He never forgets who He created us to be.

Our lives are but a blink of the eye compared to eternity.  That puts in perspective just how insignificant these past 9 months have been.  I’ll hold onto the good and be rid of the bad.  Tomorrow we start anew.  Does this mean I’m back in the blogging game?  Absolutely not.  I’m going to focus on His word and focus on using It in my life.  Never say never, but not right now.

As always…..Peace!

“Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours.” (1 Chronicles 29:11)