Musings by a Denver Wedding Photographer - What Defines Us?

on't look now, but this Denver Wedding Photographer got to thinking... What defines us?

I've heard so many stories lately from numerous family members, friends, clients, and acquaintances about LIFE. Stories of events that happen in the day to day as we go about our lives. Events that bring joy and events that crush us. And it really seems that as I listen, and as I speak, we communicate that these events define us. These events shape our story so much that when someone asks 'What about you?" Or, 'What about them?" We respond with "Well, I heard that this was happening to them..." Or, "Me? Last week I did this, and next month this is supposed to happen..." And that's it. If you know what I'm going through, what is happening to me, then you know me.

But I've got to tell you that lately I've been nagged by this thought that if What I Am DOING defines Who I AM then I'm in big trouble! Because what am I doing? I'm sitting at a computer for hours and hours each day, week after week. I'm going out on weekends and shooting beautiful photographs of fabulous weddings. And yes, I am a Denver Wedding Photographer. I'm a guy who loves watching movies in my free time. Listening to podcasts about them. Reading articles about them. I'm a guy who also enjoys playing board games with friends when I get a free evening on a weekend. I like concerts. I like football. And I recently discovered that I love sushi.

But recently I've been thinking, at the end of my days (oh, yes, I'm going there!), that none of that will amount to much and I'm certainly hoping that it won't define me. I hope that all of that would only define just the smallest picture of me. And so I've begun to think about what I want to define me. Beyond all circumstance, and all of the doing, who am I? And instead of the what shaping the who, how can the who then shape the what?

Um, you know what I mean?

...because if your husband is stationed in Afghanistan for a year, does that make you a military wife?

A single mom of sorts?

Does having a little brother make you a big sister?

Does completing a marathon in 3:10:10 define you? Being a huge Obama supporter?

Can Autism define you?

Being a 'Graphic Designer'? A 'College Student/Barista'? The 'Youngest'? A Brunette?

Adopted? African-American? Healthy? Sick?

Are you everything you've lost?

And here is where I've settled. That Who I am is defined by Whose I am and not by what I do or what happens to me.

God has called me His child, and that's who I am. He owns me, I am His, and that's who I am.
Emily calls me husband and Rose, Philip, and Phoenix call me daddy, and that's who I am. They claim me and I claim them, and it's those relationships that make me who I am.

And so where does that leave me today? Trying to figure out how the who shapes the what, that's where. :)