A new year is the perfect time to do the things we've put off starting. So after more than 8 years, I'm finally editing my pictures from our 2017 trip to Ireland.

Ridiculous, I know. But these photos have sat in my lightroom catalog for 8 years, and I see the folder every time I open my computer. For a very really very long time, the photos felt like they were mocking me. There's no way I could have known what was coming, but still, I felt like a fool for even enjoying this trip, and for dreaming of what grand photography adventures might be in my future.

These photos are from our trip in October of 2017. I had booked this dream wedding at the height of my traveling-wedding-photography career – an extremely fun and laid back couple, with an engagement session in Austin, a wedding in Ireland, and reception in Pennsylvania. It fed every bit of my ravenous appetite for variety and travel, and even with morning sickness and a tropical storm that made outdoor photos nearly impossible, the whole trip was amazing. I was 9 weeks pregnant with Sunley, and I had no idea that her perfect little spirit and spunk would be accompanied by a life-altering diagnosis. Ignorance was bliss, until the truth made me feel like a fool.

I remember telling Derek during this trip that Baby#3 would be our “traveling baby.” I was already planning on hosting a photography workshop in the Faroe Islands in 18 months, and my version of slowing down meant just taking the kids along for future travel gigs. Travel was fulfilling so many parts of my spirit, and don’t get me wrong — I still have an interest in travel. But not a hunger. It’s funny how unimportant your own adventures become when you allow Him to guide your hunger. If I never see the Faroe Islands, it is not a tragedy. I don’t even crave it anymore. And don’t feel sorry for me because I haven’t settled; I have peered through the window, and walked through the door to abundantly MORE. I feed on better food.

On her wedding day, the bride’s florist showed up and the whole vibe changed. Everyone was being so quiet and precious, and I could tell something was up. The bride’s mother thanked the florist over and over for coming and said things like “We would have understood if you couldn't pull it off.”

Afterwards, I learned that the florist's young daughter had just died days or weeks before the wedding.

“What happened?” I asked one of the bridesmaids.

“Cancer.”

“Oh, ok…I mean, that's awful.”

Oh, ok. I was embarrassed that I'd said that out loud, and still cringe when I think about how casually I blurted that out. But in my mind at the time, a death that you know is coming sounded softer than some sudden incident, and I genuinely felt relieved knowing that her death wasn't out of the blue. We do whatever we can to tie a bow around horrifying circumstances, especially when we're on the outside. I had a lot to learn, and this little moment was a mercy from the Lord – my moment of embarrassment and self-conviction caused just enough reflection to prepare my heart just a little more for the diagnosis rumbling in my belly.

If my life were a movie, I guess that small interaction would have been categorized as foreshadowing. There were other things, too: A baby boy named Roscoe who lived a short life but forever changed mine, an Instagram account about the positive side of raising a child with Down’s, and lots of small hard things in my mothering to climb over before we got to this cardiac mountain. The Lord had graciously prepared my heart to receive Sunley's.

Even with the slow build to diagnosis day, it still felt sudden, and my life had a very clear before and after portion. And this Ireland trip was one of the last significant memories hidden behind the Before Wall.

I've tried to edit these photos a few times (And don't worry, the bride got her photos just weeks after her wedding), but haven't fully looked through them in 8 years. And actually, I'm proud that I was so gentle with myself. The timing is good. The photos hold more meaning now, and there is more nostalgia and less haunting. I may share a few on my photography page, which is a nearly obsolete corner of Instagram, but here is a few of my favorites…I still have a couple hundred to get through.

No spoilers here, but if you've seen the movie Hamnet, then perhaps this first photo will remind you, as it did me, of unexplored territories.

The beauty on the other side can only be reached by walking through a quite misunderstood, quite worn, quite ominous door.

Grateful He chose us, and grateful He walked through the door with us.

I remember researching “thin places” before going to Ireland, not knowing that I was about to experience a lifetime of living in a thin veil. I don't see a fool in these photos anymore. I see a very young woman about to be emptied and then filled with the purest bravery from the purest Friend. I see a young woman thinking she was on one of her biggest adventures abroad, totally unaware that she had an even bigger adventure coming. Hollywood would call it foreshadowing. I call it preparation from a gentle Creator.