Peace for the Storm.

This past Friday, we launched a new project–one that is very close to my heart. It’s called Peace for the Storm, and it’s a joint venture between me (Lindsey) and my sister, Amanda. Those of you who are friends with me “in real life” are aware that about a month ago, Amanda was shot during the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino. Our whole family was completely shocked that something like this could have happened, and we rushed out to be with her during those first few scary days. The weeks since that time have been chaotic–navigating the ups and downs regarding Amanda’s physical progress, coming to grips with what the future holds for our family, dealing with a barrage of media requests, and more. But the one constant in our lives has been a complete and utter dependence on God. We know without a shadow of a doubt that He was protecting her throughout that incident (we had all prayed together specifically for her that morning), and we take courage in the fact that since He spared her life, it is undoubtedly because He has more for her to do. She has determined to use this experience as a testimony to share Him with others, and we have already seen the power of God working in people’s lives as a result of this terrible tragedy, more than what could be written in this blog post.

Amanda is still recovering physically from her injuries, but we know emotional recovery always takes longer than the physical. One of the ways Amanda has been healing emotionally is through finding peace in God’s word. Friends have sent encouraging Bible verses through Facebook; schoolchildren have colored Scripture pages and mailed them in care packages to her. She also draws a great deal of strength from listening to and singing hymns–many times we sang and read in the hospital room together as a family. As I said before, Amanda wants to share Christ’s message more than ever. It’s still difficult for her to do or talk much while she recovers, but recently Amanda had a different idea– she could share the words that have encouraged and uplifted her so much with others online.

There is so much more to this story, and soon we will expand upon the project even more with a specifically dedicated website, but for now, I’ll discuss more of what I normally talk about here on Gallerie Q–the branding design and development process. We wanted to launch the project as soon as possible, actually on New Year’s Day, to start everyone’s new year with inspiration. Amanda and I spent time together putting our thoughts down on paper–well, more like in InDesign and Google Docs. :) Amanda already had some ideas for the name, and we finally settled on Peace for the Storm… Amanda has definitely been weathering a pretty big storm, but we are hoping to reach others who are also experiencing their own storms–in fact, life in general can be pretty stormy, can’t it? But God alone can provide peace in the storm. And that’s what we are hoping to share here, peace FOR the storms of life.

Our next step was choosing the color palette. If you know Amanda, you know her favorite color is purple, so that had to be incorporated somehow. Soon we had a light, bright, and restful color scheme of lavender and lilac, berry and sage. From there, it was on to choosing fonts (no small task, if you know me), developing a logo, and figuring out the general look and feel of our designs. Below is a graphic of what we ended up with.

On January 1, we launched our Instagram account, @peaceforthestorm and our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/peaceforthestorm and both accounts are gaining followers, thanks to God. We hope to update the accounts multiple times a week with new images, and we are working towards the website launch as well. We are excited about the project, and of course, I am very much enjoying the continuing design process (the verses and songs get wonderfully stuck in my head!), but our ultimate focus is on sharing the message behind these images and graphics. Please follow us if this project uplifts you in any way, and please share it with others if you know someone who is needing peace and encouragement in their life as well.

Amanda said multiple times after the tragedy occurred that if even one person can draw closer to Christ or be saved because of this, the pain and suffering she’s going through will be worth it. We hope this project will be a blessing to many and will further her desire for more people to walk closer with God.