I WILL RISE! Marcee's Story There have been so many times in my life when I have felt so alone and scared to reach out to anyone. Anytime I got close to someone, it seemed that they were taken away from me. As I was getting into my teen years, my Mom shifted her priorities. She focused on the men she was dating and made them the priority in her life. We used to do everything together and I felt like all of a sudden she didn't want to be with me. This made me feel like I wasn't good enough for her and it had a huge impact on my self-esteem! She ended up getting married and left us at home with our Nana and Grandpa so she could go live with her new husband and his parents. She didn’t come visit much so I knew my relationship with her was gone. It was hard for me but I was fortunate that I had Nana to be my role model. However, during my senior year of high school, my Nana was diagnosed with ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease). I was able to help take care of her until she passed away one month before my high school graduation. This hit me extremely hard as she was my one and only confidant and now I had no one. No one to share my worries with. No one to tell my successes to. No one. I felt so lost and alone. I had never felt so far away from my Heavenly Father as I did during that time in my life. I stopped going to church with the exception of Sacrament. Heavenly Father knew what I needed and it was a calling to teach Primary. That calling alone brought me back to church! In the year after Nana passed away, I started to rebuild my relationship with my Mom. This was halted when she suddenly passed away, only one year after Nana. After this happened, I struggled to get close to anyone. I worried that if I got close to them, they would be taken away. I was so scared! When I was dating, it was hard to share my feelings and desires. It took my third boyfriend, who then became my husband, for me to get close to someone and to start loving myself again. It was years of hard work before I was able to fully open up, let him in and embrace myself. He was so patient and kind with me. He never pushed me to do what I wasn’t comfortable with. I feel that Heavenly Father knew what He was doing when he gave me my husband! My life has been blessed in more ways than I can count! We were blessed with a beautiful daughter who has a few special needs that keep us on our toes at times. Some days I feel overwhelmed… like I just can’t do it anymore. But with Heavenly Fathers help, I know I can keep going, knowing that tomorrow is a new day! About two and a half years ago, I suffered a miscarriage. We had struggled to get pregnant for three and a half years only to lose our baby at fifteen weeks. It was a loss that I really struggled with. I couldn’t understand why it took so long to get our baby boy just to lose him without any answers... I learned that Heavenly Father had a different plan for him than we did. I just had to trust in the Lord and know that He has a plan for us all! I knew that even though I was struggling, I still needed to be present in the lives of my husband and daughter as well as fulfilling my calling in the Primary at church. There has always been someone that keeps me going and I have come to know that Heavenly Father is that person. He has been with me through it all! He never left my side! Through all the loss in my life, He has been my cheerleader. He has strengthened me and kept me going. Having callings in the Primary has been a blessing in disguise. Those callings have given me something bigger than myself to focus on. They have blessed me to keep moving forward. Thanks to all the blessings that Heavenly Father has given me, I have been able to RISE! I know that I can get through anything, any trials, as long as I turn to Heavenly Father. He will help me get through them and I can keep on going. Marcee is our tenth BEAUTY we are celebrating!! How incredibly BEAUTIFUL is Marcee?!?! Marcee is SUCH an incredible and BEAUTIFUL woman!! Her story brought so much perspective to my life. I too, have lost so many ppl that have been so close to me. It is the worst. It's soooo hard. My heart truly reaches out to Marcee. This photo shoot was so interesting to me, so eye opening and so incredibly humbling because I had read all the girls stories, tried to memorize the new faces (Kelsey's models) as much as I could via Facebook, but it never did them justice to meeting these AMAZING WOMEN in real life. Marcee was one in particular that I was impressed with and that stood out to me. She was SO POSITIVE, SO SWEET, HAD THE BIGGEST SMILE THE ENTIRE PHOTO SHOOT AND MADE ME FEEL ON TOP OF THE WORLD!! This lady is AMAZING!! It was interesting to me that a woman so bright, so smiley, so loving and soooo incredibly sweet could have such a dark back story with soooo much loss. You would truly never know it from her bright and light presence!! Marcee I'm so sorry to hear about all your loss and your miscarriage. My heart breaks for you but I KNOW you and YOUR STORY are going to help soooo many women to rise above such loss and look heavenward towards our loving Heavenly Father and Savior Jesus Christ!! Marcee had truly RISEN above it all and come out on top. She is the epitome of what the Lord wants for us in this life. She has shown me that no matter HOW HARD your life is, HOW AWFUL and dark your trials on this Earth have been, HOW SAD you have been it's important that you DO NOT STAY THERE. It's important to RISE!!!! We love you Marcee!!!! THANK YOU SOOOO MUCH MARCEE FOR BEING APART OF THIS!!!! You are truly an inspiration, an AMAZING woman and you're so incredibly BEAUTIFUL!! It was an HONOR to get to know you, to read of your journey to self-LOVING, to photograph you intense beauty and to become closer friends with you!! I think you are simply, AMAZING!! You can 100% do ANYTHING you put your mind to and you are going to ROCK whatever you decide to do!! You are INCREDIBLE and I just think the world of you Marcee and... MARCEE, YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL!!!! <3 Alexa Taylor-Jay Ogilvie Taylor Jay Photography It is CRAZY SCARY to put your story out there for the world to see, to talk about such hard things/times. But THIS woman is so strong, so courageous and is sharing HER story with the intent to help other women see themselves as God does. To help YOU on your journey to self-LOVING!! If her story, her courage and her heart touches you please let her know by commenting below!! I JUST ADORE YOU MARCEE!!!! This photo shoot was a dual effort!! The other master photographer behind this photo shoot and idea is Kelsey Bailey Photography!! Please go 'like' her Facebook page >> https://www.facebook.com/KelseyBaileyPhoto/ and click here to view HER STUNNING PHOTOS of Cassie Firth and all her Celebration of beauty photos as well from our shoot!! >> https://kelseybaileyphotography.weebly.com/celebration-of-beauty/i-rise-marcees-story We had a master videographer documenting every little amazing, tender and BEAUTIFUL moment!! Please click here to see Shaun Schofield from DOZE Videos AMAZING BTS video and get excited to see allllllll the beautiful pictures, stories and the grand finale of throwing color COMING YOUR WAY!!!! Please go 'like' his Facebook page >> https://www.facebook.com/dozevideos/ View Shaun's AWESOME BTS video of our Celebration of Beauty project on his youtube.com channel Please click here to see: >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8xniy6r68A Taylor Jay Photography - my Facebook page >> https://www.facebook.com/taylorjayphotography/ Here's ALLLL the details below to the why we are posting these women, their personal stories and their journey to no longer self-hating but SELF-LOVING!!!! This is an incredible and inspiring project and we can't wait to take y'all on this journey with us!! <3 <3 >> https://taylorjayphoto.weebly.com/celebration-of-…/the-intro LIKE.COMMENT.SHARE.ENJOY!! Please Like. Comment. Share. Tag. any woman you feel could benefit from Marcee's amazing, real and raw story!!!!
1 Comment
Kathrine Bhana
3/19/2024 12:45:43 am
ALS is a cruel disease. My mum is 83 and had great difficulty speaking and swallowing much of anything. Food was getting trapped in her throat and blocking her air way was happening more often. she battled for each breath. The riluzole did very little to help her. The medical team did even less. Her decline was rapid and devastating. The psychological support from the medical centre was non-existent and if it were not for the sensitive care and attention of our primary physician, there she would have died. There has been little if any progress in finding a cure or reliable treatment. Acupuncture eased her anxiety a bit. this year our primary physician started her on Natural Herbs Centre ALS/MND Ayurvedic treatment, 6 months into treatment she improved dramatically. It has been a complete turnaround with her speech, she no longer needs the feeding tube to feed, the treatment is a miracle. She recovered significantly! Visit Naturalherbscentre. com
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