“Darling!” James spun around in his office chair and flashed an excited smile. “Would you like to go out in the snow and take pictures with me?” 

I spooned the last bite of banana into Mordecai’s mouth and glanced at my to-do list. All those tasks? They could wait. “Sure thing! When do we leave?” 

“4pm. That gives us an hour and a half to wrap up what we are doing,” James replied, looking out the window at the gently falling snow.

I made a mental checklist. Make sure I had enough diapers in the diaper bag. Pack snacks for us. Pack food for Mordecai. Wash the baking dishes piled by the sink. I put Mordecai on the floor to play with his blocks and scurried off to the kitchen.  

Amazingly, by 4pm, we were almost ready to leave. We loaded up the van with our bags, our baby and our gear. And the adventure began. 

We wandered through a West Virginia hollow looking for scenic subjects. This snowfall frosted every tree limb, turning the homeliest hollow into a delightful world of wonder. Then we spotted it . . . a darling red barn nestled against the hills with a fence line curving towards it in perfect symmetry. James pulled off the road, turned on our hazards and hopped out with his camera in hand.   

I sat in the warm van and watched him through a veil of snowflakes spiraling prettily from the sky.  When I was a little girl, I often wondered what the man was like that I would marry some day. That is, if I were to marry someone at all. 

What would he be like?

Would he be tall or short? Would he have blond or dark hair? And somehow he would be a blend of all my childhood heroes….William Wallace, Parson Gray, Ranger Bill and of course, Roy Rogers. The more I wondered the more I had a hard time imagining it at all. 

By the time I had passed the age of eighteen, my values had changed a bit. 🙂 At this time in my life, a book entitled Before You Meet Prince Charming by Sarah Mally greatly inspired and encouraged me to make the most of my years of singleness. (I highly recommend it, it’s worth the read!) 

My ideal husband still was not clearly defined in my head, but I had a growing consciousness of the character and spiritual qualities that were valuable to me. 

The first time I met James Staddon, I was not instantly swept off my feet. I loved his photos (my family provided him with a steady customer base for his Lenspiration calendars) and I had even once spoken to him at a homeschool conference, at which I told him that we enjoyed his calendars very much. But the first time that James showed up at our church in Connecticut as he traveled through our area to take pictures, I thought of him more as a celebrity than as that “ideal husband” lurking somewhere out there in the world. 

A heart for God

It was later, when I sat in an audience listening to James share about the concept of surrender, illustrated through photography, that his heart for the Lord resonated with mine. I caught a glimpse of his tenderness towards the Lord, his genuine love for his family, his genuine relationship with God. And that was very attractive to me. 

The more I observed him from afar, the more I genuinely respected and appreciated him. And on that day when wonder of all wonders, after receiving the go ahead from our parents to begin serious conversations about marriage, James Staddon called me, I began to learn that what I had observed from afar was true. 

There was another aspect to our relationship that I had not given much thought to . . . the fact that I was marrying a photographer. 

Helping James take pictures

During our courtship and later engagement, there were many times I enjoyed a sunset or golden hour virtually, sitting “with” James on a video call, with his phone clipped into a holder from which I watched the sky, or sometimes the ground, or sometimes a bush while he scrambled around a rock pile to find the best angle for his photo. Through the wonderful gift of technology, I enjoyed “going” to Palo Duro Canyon, Texas, or the summit of Mount Sherman in Colorado (and I didn’t have to exert one muscle!) or the side of a random picturesque mountainside in New Mexico. 

Did you know I was with the photographer behind these shots? 😉

Blazing Tumbleweed
Cedro Peak, Cibola National Forest, New Mexico
Download as a free desktop background in the next Latest from Lenspiration update (subscribe)

Marrying James meant marrying a man who loves to travel, who loves early mornings, sunrises, sunsets, who loves hiking and exploring and finding pretty pictures along the way. It was a bit of a different life from anything I had known.  

If any of you have a sibling who loves to take pictures, you know what I mean. There’s a reason our van has the bumper sticker that says, Photographer: expect sudden stops. 

During our married life, I’ve done a lot of waiting. I’ve waited on a rock while the sun went down. I’ve waited on a rock while the sun came up. I’ve sat in an empty sanctuary while James scouted the room to take pictures for a wedding. I’ve sat in the car on the side of a random road while he photographed a brilliantly colored sky, a scattering of leaves, or even a lighthouse.

Sometimes being the wife of a photographer requires some sacrifice. On one trip to Florida, we got up to take pictures of sunrise every morning three days in a row. The easy choice would be to stay in bed and let him go out on his excursion. After all, I just sat there in my lawn chair in the sand for a few hours while he photographed the sunrise, a shell, or a bird. 

But there’s the flip side of that. I listened to the waves crash on the shore. I watched the dawn of light flicker along the horizon. I felt the refreshing breeze before the heat of the day. And when the sun popped up so high that the rosy golden light flitted away, I sat hand in hand with my man and watched the rest of the morning awaken around us.

A sacrificial love

Love often involves sacrifice. “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

“Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.” (1 John 4:10)

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: who being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: and being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:6) 

My life is not like anything I could have imagined. When I dreamed of my ideal husband, I dreamed of being a “help meet for him.” I loved the thought of the companionship we would share and the friendship we would enjoy. But like all relationships, it comes with its sacrifices.

And there are many times when James has sacrificed for me. He has set aside his camera or the opportunity to take pictures of a sunset to help wash a pile of dishes, or carve out time to spend talking together. And being a married man, he isn’t able to adventure to the extent he did in his past or off-road in a minivan the way he once did in an Outback.

But when you choose to love someone, it’s worth the sacrifice. 

Yes, I married a photographer. But there’s no one I’d rather travel with, even if it means unexpected stops along the way. 🙂

Happy Valentine’s Day, James!