Beautiful Little G and Spring!

This little girl is very special indeed.  She is too beautiful for words, and she is very, very intelligent.  She loves books and playing!  I wanted to capture who she was to the very core.  I wanted to express her heart for life, love, beauty and knowledge.  She is going to be a world changer indeed!  She loves her Bible and is always wanting to read more! 

The New Little Smittle

I love being given the chance to follow a family.  When I first began taking photos, I begged this family to let me practice on their children.  Now after a year of practicing and perfecting, I am once again with this family.  A maternity, birth, and newborn completing this beautiful family of six.  I was beyond blessed to be a witness to this miraculos home birth.  The mid-wife present is Kim Jacob of Conway, Arkansas.  She is a certified liscensed midwife, and she did a fantastic job! Kim had an assistant and mid-wife that she was training.  I am sad to say that I forgot to grab their names.  I need to get better at this giving credit where credit is due thing.

           

Paula Bean Photography: A Job, Ministry, Lifestyle

One year!  I have been behind the camera for a whole year now, and I stay amazed at what God is doing through the lives He brings to me!  For a year now, I have seen so many families, couples, newborns, and children.  I have had the chance to hold newborns and pray for them.  I have had the chance of watching babies come into the world.  I have had the chance to wish newly married couples a wonderful marriage.  I have been invited to some of the most precious moments of friends, family, and strangers who have become friends.  Wow!  What a blessing!  I want to offer a huge thank you to ever single person who supports my dream!

 

 

I have three desires for Paula Bean Photography:

1. Bring glory to God by becoming great at the profession He has placed me in through practice, training, and research.  Many hours are spent on the computer, talking with friends, and soon professional training!  I know how to control what my camera does, and I know how to work with natural light and am quickly learning more about flash photography.  All of this was a gift from God.  It just clicked!

2. Bring glory to God by creating real works of art through knowledge of the profession and the gift of creativity.  I go into each session with a vision and idea.  I like to capture beauty and the dream-like state.

3. Bring glory to God by making my profession affordable to the common public.  I am not the cheapest photographer, and I do not strive to be.  However, I am no where near the most expensive photographer, and I don’t strive to be.  When my husband bought me my camera, he looked straight at me and instructed, “The only way I am going to continue to support you is if no matter how good you get, you will stay in the price range of the general public.”  So there you go!  I price my sessions by the time before and after the session I spend on the images.  I used to hate the idea of charging people, but every minute I spend away from your family is a minute away from my own family.  I love to offer the best I can offer to each customer, but we never have done this for the money.  Almost all the money that comes from the camera goes back into the business or towards ministry.

   However, the dream for Paula Bean Photography doesn’t end there!  Here are a few things that both my husband and I hope come out of this photography investment:

Military Discount Offers:

Births: If your husband is deployed, and you are giving birth, please let me know!  I am offering huge discounts on births so that your husband is able to have images of your sweet baby being born.

Family Pictures:  I offer discounts on all family portraits for military families of the past and the present.

I Love You Photos: If your husband (or wife) is deployed, and you would like for them to have a picture of you, I give discounts for portraits so that they may have a little something of you to carry with them.

Foster Family/Children Portraits

First Family Portraits:  If you have recently adopted, and you need new family pictures, I would love to offer those for you at a discounted rate!

Announcement Pictures/We Want You pictures:  One of the coolest things in the world is to announce and celebrate your adoption!  Also, it is so nice to have a picture to send your child in waiting as you pursue them!  Both of the pictures can be yours at a huge discounted rate!

Foster Family:  If you are fostering children and would like a picture of them for your own or for them, then again, let me know!!  I offer these as well.  These will never be posted because of privacy reasons, but they images can be yours!

Referral Program:

This is a major discount offer that can earn you free family photos!  For every friend that says you refered them, they get $10 off their session, and you get $10 off of your session.  Once, you have had 7 friends use Paula Bean Photography, you earn a FREE… yes FREE family portrait session.  If you would rather, you could also put $70 towards a birth or wedding package instead of the family portraits!  This is a great way for you and your friends to get some awesome discounts!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Fight against Modern Day Slavery and Paula Bean Photography:

When I say that most of your money goes to ministry, I mean it!  We are in a fight… no war against modern-day slavery and human trafficking.  My husband and I have been fighting this battle for three years now, and I am ready for the fight to be over and won!  I am ready to declare freedom for the bound.  When you like Paula Bean Photography’s page, you will be given updates about the business, but you will also be given updates about the war!  I will tell you bi-weekly on what you can do to end this horrid tragedy that has come into the world, the country, every state, every city!  Welcome to the battle!

                   Almost Done!  I want to thank you for taking the time to read and learn a little about what we are doing here at Paula Bean Photography.  I am ready to meet you and your family!  A little bit more about us.  My name is Paula, and my husband is Michael.  He is quickly learning how to be my second-shooter so that we can double-team wedding.  I have several years experience in journalism and officially one year experience behind the camera.  We are both Christians and are humbled that the God of the Universe would select us to spread His word.  We have so many desires.  We want to travel, go on mission trips, live overseas, own a ranch for children, have many children, adopt tons of children, and much more than that I am sure!  I am a survivor of Poly Cystic Ovarian syndrome, and I learn daily how to fight that disease.  If you would like to know more about my research, please email me!  We are currently living in Conway, Arkansas, but we can service anywhere in the South.  We make many trips to Missouri, Alabama, etc, and would love to serve as your photography team!

 

 

For more information please contact Paula Bean at 501-652-6295 or psmbean@gmail.com  We thank you for your support, and we would love if you jumped over to our facebook page and gave us a “like”!  By following our page you get all the updates!  http://www.facebook.com/paulabeanphotography

 

Thank you again, Love Michael and Paula Bean

 

One Day Soon

Where is my heart today?

One Day Soon…

 

One day soon the three mile runs, the detox tea, the passing up pizza, the extra crunch, the time on my knees in prayer, the tears of defeat, the getting rid of sugar, the headaches and the pains will be a distant memory.

One day soon the there will be little gigles and sleepless nights.  Bedtime stories, sibling fights.  There will be “It’s not fair” and walks down the aisle.  There will be footy pajama tip-toeing down the stairs and long conversations over cups of tea.

 

 

 

 

One day soon the wait will be over, and we will look back and think it was all worth it.  Because when that day comes, and God finally allows life, this beloved man will finally hold his child.

 And on days like today, where tears come too quickly and reality is a little too harsh… I quietly thank God for that one day soon.

Love Covers Everything

  I have been struggling so much with hatred the past few months.  Since our last miscarriage I had some confusion arise about heaven and began to hate God for the ideas I had about Heaven.  I lived through months of torture but really clinging to the Word of God and His voice for comfort to get from one day to the next.  At the end of my struggle, I learned much about Heaven and really got a lot of comfort from His voice.  My sister-in-law and a couple of close friends prayed against the enemy, and the result was freedom.  However, in the midst of this hatred the re-election of Obama and the impact of social media have basically torn America into two groups.  I have now came to a point where it is hard to be kind to either conservatives or liberals.  I find myself staying angry at both groups.  At liberals I think, how could you devalue life that much and at conservatives I throw insults about going against the Bible and trying to feed your own selfish needs and desires!  In the car headed to my Dad’s house I find myself admitting, I am really no longer a conservative.  I am really not a liberal either.  I am kind of a “Don’t-Care-itive.”  Why?  Because behind the veil of conservative or liberal there are real people who are hurting and in need.  Give me the people!  Put them at my kitchen table with a glass of hot cocoa or tea.  Let me make them cookies and discuss their needs and their hurts!

 

So back to my issue with hate.  I became frustrated with my husband after my work to fight human trafficking became too much for my mind and followed my husband and me back into our home.  We are, thankfully, seeking wise Biblical counsel this week on how to put work in one area and my relationship in another.  However, the hate became so suffocating after a horrible group rape scene in the play West Side Story I woke a dear friend from her sleep to cry and explain my anger at my husband.  She helped me see so much the clarity of the situation (I was becoming the girls that I help, and my husband was becoming the world that continued to enslave them).  There was a release of hatred as I crawled into bed that night next to a sleeping husband and prayed outloud against the enemy attacks, for the girls who were lost, for the men who were in a very serious type of bondage, and for my own love for a husband who would carry the world on his shoulders for his wife.

 

  Coming out of this all, I have prayed for deeper understanding of why people hurt, and more than that, I have prayed for a deeper understanding on how to appropriately share the gospel with the hurting.  I can’t become another person and carry their hurt or burden for them, but I can intercede for them, and if I can figure out the balance then God becomes unstoppable in my life and in the life of others through me!  While I am praying I keep hearing the words:

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers a multitude of sins.”  1 Peter 4:8

I am almost in tears now because I just want to cry out to God… what have I become?  At what point does hate win a person’s heart or life?  At what point did hate become the conversion tactic used by Christians to win people?  I despise that word “win.”

Now don’t get me wrong… there are good things to HATE!

I HATE murder of all types.

I HATE rape.

I HATE slavery.

I HATE divorce.

I HATE child abuse.

I HATE poverty.

I HATE racism.

I HATE enslavement to sexual bondage of all sorts.

I HATE that a woman feels like there is no other way but to sell her body.

I HATE adultry.

I HATE sexism of all types (not just against women).

However, all of those things come from the enemy.  The real enemy because see, we have a real enemy who comes to seek, decieve, and destroy.  He comes to destroy lives, and God is fighting a major battle by enlisting people to fight on the side of truth and love.  Let’s take a minute and observe the issues between men and women.  I wish the Bible would give more clarity on what happened to Adam and Eve after they left the garden.  I mean, at some point they had to get over the whole eating the fruit and being kicked out of the garden because they made love to have Cain and Abel along with a multitude of other children.  However, we don’t really get an insight to what happened directly after.  Did they have a huge fight?  Did Adam continue to blame Eve?  Did they walk away from each other for a while?  Did they eventually forgive one another and come back together?  Am I the only one who wonders about their personalities and actions?  Anyway, fast forward a few hundred years, and you have the good ole country days where men and women worked the farm.  I wondered what caused a man to hit a woman the very first time.  Did she smart off to him, or was he just angry because of a hard day of work and she wasn’t fast enough with dinner?  Either way, a man hits a woman, and the woman becomes the “lesser sex” because she is not as strong as the man.  Fast forward to a time when men tried to keep women silenced and women finally had enough.  They fought back with feminism because that is what they had, and now, we are so cruel to men.  We treat them like children and depower them.  We use manipulation in sex and words.  Our men need us, and we continue to shut them down!  Since, they crave respect they listen to the enemy’s lies and seek elsewhere to find it!  I wonder when the first rape occurred?  Did the man feel bad after?  Did he go into a room and cry?  Did he feel like he had power?  Maybe he got a little power trip out of the whole deal.  Maybe he got a huge power trip… what if he had more women?  What if he could sell them?  Then he could have money, women, and power!  That is the only thing important nowadays since women have no respect for themselves and sell their bodies because they don’t really know how valuable their lives are!  Now you have pimps, slavery, etc.  Now you have a world of destruction.

STOP!

   I wish someone had been there to love one of those people back to freedom, back to the Father, back to Love!  I wish someone had been there to say, it will be okay.  You will have consequences to your sin, but we are going to LOVE you out of this; after all, love covers a multitude of sins.  Does it matter that the men of our world have really dropped the ball as the woman’s protector (in general)?  No!  Does it matter that women have fought back with pride, insecurities, and fear through manipulation? No!  All that matters is that it stops, and we as believers dig in our heels and LOVE them out!

I hope this was sort of logical.  I have been thinking about loving people into freedom all weekend long.  I will leave you with two ideas.  The first is this (directed at believers):  Before entering my first brothel I had to read this manual (huge manual) about how to treat the people (both male and female) we would find inside.  One of the first major and reoccuring points they made was this… there is no REASON at all to tell a girl that what they are doing is wrong, bondage, and dangerous.  They know all of this!!!  What they need to know is this:  you are a real human, a person, a beloved child of God created for a purpose, no this is not that purpose, but until you see that I am going to love like mad!  I am going to love you out of this!  I am going to love until it hurts, and you have to respond.  Let us cover our lips with the love and truth of the gospel of God and clean up the reputation we have given the God of the universe!

The second is this (directed at unbelievers or those struggling to forgive): A good friend of mine was trafficked at an early age, and after years of being prostitued out eventually accepted her position.  I am not totally sure of her redemption story, but the idea is that she was redeemed!  She came out and found her voice.  It took her almost 30 years to be able to speak about the bondage she was placed in at such an early age, but since she has been healed she has done major work for the Kingdom of the Lord!  She is amazing, and she is opening a shelter for men and women who are found in enslavement right here in Arkansas.  She told a story the other night of the first day they got to work on their new shelter.  With tears in her eyes she made comment that the first group that came into the shelter to work was none other than a group of recovered Johns.  A group of men that have spen many years purchasing sex from children and women came into the shelter, looked my friend in the eyes, and said… “We owe it to the women we have taken advantadge of for so long!”  I am crying now.  Just think!!!  A survivor of prostition who has now finally found her humanity, her freedom, and her savior working along side men who are also survivors of prostitution who have finally found their humanity, their freedom, and their Savior!  Only God and love can do that people!!!