Big Conference for High End Wedding Photographers today in Dallas. I am jazzed about it.
There will be people there who are very successfully doing what I want
to do. Success leaves clues
. I need to have my eyes and ears wide open.
I believe in getting around people who are doing what you want to do.
I want be the best in the DFW area. Really! The VERY BEST. Best Quality, Best Customer Service, Best products. Most creative.
I want to be the 4th best in the nation. I then want to hang out with, learn from and be mentored by the 3 who are better than me.
I believe God is honored in
excellence! I want to honor God with my business. I want to do business
with excellence, maximizing our talents and living for one smile.
If you know of anyone having a big wedding this next year please let them know about us. We are very good. We are on the cutting edge with our equipment, education and technology. We have a great portfolio to give people a good feel for what they could expect.
This is the hardest thing I have ever written! After this
blog I won’t have much to say on the subject. This is it.
After 26 years of marriage. Keli and I are getting a
divorce.
As in most cases, we both bear responsibility. The choice is
mine, not hers. She wanted to keep working. I gave up. The hurdles were too big
to jump. We couldn’t work it out.
At times like this it is human nature to justify our
decisions by focusing only on the troubled times and defining one another by
our weakest moments. I strongly don’t want that to be our story. I refuse to
call ours a failed marriage! We had so many great times together, with our
kids, our grandkids, our friends and our family! Our marriage had way too many
successes to be labeled a failure in its final days.
Kandice, Ross, Josh and Tiffani are all doing well. Really! They
are understanding and supportive, not at all devastated. Simone and Canton love
us both and just wanna know if it’s time to play or eat. We both love our kids and they love both of us. We are very blessed!
To the people I have influenced over the past 26 years and
am now letting down, I want to genuinely apologize. I always wanted to be an
example of how to be a lifer in this marriage thing. I failed! I’m truly
sorry!! I honestly fear my divorce may give others a reason to justify quitting
way too soon. Please don’t! Neither Keli nor I take the marriage commitment
lightly and neither of us advocates divorce as a good solution to marital struggles.
I can honestly say that I wish everyone would work as hard and as long as we
have before choosing this option.
To people who looked to me as a role model, DON’T! I don’t want
you to grow up to be like me. I’d love you to grow up to be like Jesus. I am just a
struggler that fails regularly, but REALLY loves Jesus with all my heart, and
is in desperate need of the grace He gives. I let you down! Our God will never
let you down! Please know that I still love Him, His church and believe with
all my heart that His Church is the hope of the world! I will find a way to serve
Him and His Church in the background.
Keli, I was a
mediocre husband at best. I let you down too many times to overcome. I know
that I had to be very hard to live with many times. You deserved better. I am
very sorry. From the depths of my heart I will love you until the day I die and
I am cheering for your success! I am sorry the embarrassment this causes you.
To Mr. and Mrs. JR Ketchum, 28 years ago I sat in your
living room and told you that I’d take care of your little girl for the rest of
her life. You trusted me. I let you down. I have failed on
many promises. This one hurts the most.
To our friends and family, Please don’t choose a side! We
can’t divvy up friends. We both love you! Please love us both!
It is my desire to honor the many good times that 26 years
brought, forgive the wrongs we committed to each other, and walk forward with
some degree of dignity both trying to be healthy children of our Heavenly
Father who loves us deeply.
The BIG UNANSWERED question is “why?”. We have lived very
public lives and part of me says you deserve an answer to that question. But
for us to talk about the “why” is to talk about the negative, and to focus or
talk about the negative dishonors so much positive that occurred in the past 26
years. So, we are asking for a grace filled pass on answering the “why”
questions. Please? There is no big Headline News story in this. Neither of us
are living a secret life. It’s just our own private story. Will you please let it
be our very private struggle? Please give us grace. And to the friends who already
have….thank you a thousand times!
Again let me say to the people who have looked to me for spiritual leadership
over the past 26 years. I am truly sorry that I have let you down. Please don’t
blame my failures on God, church or preachers. My failures are MY own.
My future? I am first and foremost on a mission to again become
a person I respect. I lost that for a season. I hope you never have a season
where you lose respect for yourself. I AM gonna again become a person I admire! I
may never again be a leader of men… but I will get up and become a healthy child
of My Father. That matters more to me than anything else! Then I am gonna be a
dang fine son, dad and Papa.
I am gonna get healthy and build a world class photography business.
That is going very well. I hope to use my business to honor My God, serve
people, and have a blast, through the way I conduct my affairs with the utmost
integrity, creativity, quality and service. And, NO I won’t put a “Fish” on the
logo. :) I want people to stumble across the fact that what makes me different
is my deep faith in and love for God.
Somebody sent me an email with a link to this Ricky Skaggs
song. I haven’t thought of this song in years! I have listened to it at least
10 times in a row as I try to write out this blog through the tears. Please take
a moment to stop everything your doing and give it a listen. When you think of
us say a prayer for us. We would be most grateful.
Take a couple of minutes to watch Jeff Bezos the CEO of Amazon.com telling "everything he knows". His genuineness and authenticity is cool. It seems obvious to me that he isn't just "selling and promoting".
I love the statement ... "We are consumed with customer service not the competition."
This is the kind of photography company I want to build!
Bath
time. Canton is staying the night with Papa. Good times! When I look at
him it brings me so much joy and delight!
It also reminds me that my Heavenly Father loves me even more than I love Canton. Hard to imagine!
Zeph 3:17 says ..HE takes delight in ME! Wow! He knows how small I am and loves me anyway!!
"Positive
thinking doesn't work for most people because it becomes wishful
thinking. Face facts, take action & manifest positive change."
-Mark Thompson
My take/twist is that positive thinking always works!! Phil. 4:1-11 is
my favorite passage in scripture. There isn't a situation it doesn't
make better.
Wishful thinking seldom works!
Positive thinking PLUS positive action is exponentially better than positive thinking alone!
Positive
thinking doesn't make life perfect. It doesn't remove all negative
circumstances and negative people. It does change YOU and how you deal
with those people and circumstances.
Your positive thinking can
have influence on others but is a poor tool if you are trying to use it
to change others. Ultimately others can't be changed by you they must
change themselves.
I understand that everyone is not a fan. It
seems like silliness and naivety to some. But, I'm a 100% believer. My
life is significantly better when I am relentlessly positive!
