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All Things New, Truth Hope and Healing Finding Love After Divorce Arizona Engagement Photographer

Bridal, Engagements

December 31, 2017

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Hi there! Welcome to the Fully Alive Photography blog, a journal about our clients, shoots, and my own personal life. Stay a while and say hello!

Hello, I'm Tracy

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Happy New Years Eve!!!!! I want this new year to be about newness, redemption, and healing here on my blog and in my life. There is no better way than to start out with a beautiful story of truth and hope!

All Things New, Truth Hope and Healing Finding Love After Divorce Arizona Engagement Photographer

My heart cries out for truth, rawness, and vulnerability surrounded with love and support. I believe we were made for community and love to our very core. My community is really everything to me. I wouldn’t mental survive, let alone thrive, without it.

Today I have a vulnerable and truthful story to share with you. I want you to meet my dear friend Ali, and her fiance Aaron. They have so generously agreed to share their stories with me to encourage others possibility struggling to find wholeness and redemption after divorce. They have honesty and encouragement for you!

Just a little background

When I first moved to Arizona I had a hard time finding friendship again. I didn’t know a single person here. Starting from scratch in life and friendships is a challenge I am sure many of you have faced. Finally about 8 months into living in Arizona we found a community of believers at the Spring church in Tempe. I immediately dove into a group of women arising to the challenges of motherhood, community, friendship, faith, and pursuing a healthy life together. Not long into planting roots, I met Ali. Ali and I were both new to the Spring and found so many commonalities within one another and as such instantly became friends. Over the next few months it was amazing to find a soul so beautiful and refreshing. We both felt so comfortable sharing our life stories, our pain, our challenges in motherhood, and so much more. It felt so good to finally know someone on a deeper level again, after years of floating state to state and never really belonging.

While I cannot share all the details of Ali’s life that she shared with me, I can share that she is strong, brave, loyal, and incredibly kind. I can also share the parts of her story that she has so kindly given below.

She has the deepest capacity for love and forgiveness. She has been through a rollercoaster for years, she has suffered and risen again with her faith.

Ali and Aaron both have been through divorce, as many have in our day and age.

Every situation varies on the why and how, but one thing remains, divorce leads to heartache, to a type of brokenness that is hard to recover from, especially so when it wasn’t your choice or circumstances arose out of your control that broke the relationship.

Having kids makes that 10 times harder. Ali and Aaron both have beautiful daughters, who will now becomes sisters! That is such an exciting and redemptive turn of events for them, however hard.

I am so proud of Ali and Aaron both. It warms my heart to know that they have chosen to allow themselves to love and trust again. They will, of course, always wrestle to choose trust and choose this love that found them so unexpectedly. I will share their love story on the wedding blog, so you will have to come back for the beautiful romance!

 

Today I would love for you to hear from Ali and Aaron on the raw truth about finding love after brokenness, and building trust after divorce.

I have asked them to share their heart on a few vague but vulnerable questions, because I want to encourage those who may have struggled similarly. I want you to know that you are not alone, that some of the pain will pass, and you can again find love and build a stronger faith that leads you into a deeper relationship, and friendships and community.

 

What are some grieving processes you have allowed yourself to experience before you felt able to move on with your life?

Ali: This was really hard for me, so I had to allow myself to go through as many emotions as I could take. Since I didn’t know how to do this alone, I went to counseling. Talking about everything that happened in my first marriage was so incredibly helpful to allow me to move on and be open to the idea of new love. The hardest part for me was trust and with the help of counseling and the amazing, most genuine person that Aaron is, I was able to begin to trust again.

Aaron:  It was tough to allow someone else in knowing that the next person could potentially hurt me. I definitely was not looking for a relationship, the relationship literally found me when I was ready.

What struggles did you face when you discovered your feelings for each other? Did you wrestle with allowing yourself to love again and why? 

Ali: I struggled because there hadn’t been a clear closure to my previous marriage. We spent so many hours having conversations about both of our previous marriages to be able to understand where each of us were at that moment. For me, it was hard to let myself love again, not because I thought I didn’t deserve it, but because what happened before was so traumatic. Loving Aaron is so refreshingly easy. He loves me with a love that is beyond anything I can express in words. I feel secure, connected, balanced, respected, the list could go on and on.

Aaron: I chose my last divorce (because) I wanted to be with someone who REALLY loves me. Ali is that person. (Another struggle for me was that) I wanted to make sure that my daughter was going to be ok with me seeing someone else. I wanted to make sure that she was going to like the next person I decided to be with.

Once you realized that you did indeed love each other and wanted to live life together, was there a peace or a healing element that you can share?

Ali: Once I realized that I loved Aaron very much, I felt more at peace with allowing myself to move on with my life. I guess the healing element is knowing that I am loved exactly as I am and that I don’t have to pretend to be someone I am not. Previously, I had walked away from God and I went as far as thinking that God did not exist. That is not who I am at all. I love God and I am so thankful that He gave me a second change at a happy life. Now, Aaron and I both walk alongside the Lord and He is who keeps us grounded.

Aaron: It was strange, we both felt an inner peace but it wasn’t obvious. Every time I was with Ali, I just felt like that was where I was supposed to be.  We were on the same wavelength with our thoughts. We jived with the things we liked and especially our morals and values were in line with each other’s.

Is there anything you will change in this marriage that you hope sets you up for a lifetime together?

Ali: Yes. There are so many things that will change, however, continuing our walk with God together as a couple is extremely important for both of us and I know in my heart that this time it will be different because of that.

Aaron: We will keep going on dates. I will keep showing Ali that I love her. I will tell her everyday, but words sometimes are just that; words. I will show her that I love her, and be the best husband I can be. I know that I have some growing and learning to do but as long as I keep her in my mind, we will be just fine.

Thank you so much Aaron & Ali for sharing some of your life with me and my reader.

I am so proud of you both for allowing love into your life again after heartache and broken trust. I am excited for your girls to grow up together in the family structure you have built for them. Especially the love they will see you model. They will be lead to truth, hope, and love this year and many to come.

Happy New Years & Happy Wedding Year!

Love, me.

 

All Things New, Truth Hope and Healing Finding Love After Divorce Arizona Engagement Photographer

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I'm Tracy and I'm so happy you're here. This blog a journal about our clients, shoots and my own personal life! Stay awhile, leave a comment, or say hi!

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