Erika Cockerham Mulholland shared their story and experiences with us recently and you can find our conversation below.
Hi Erika , thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What do you think others are secretly struggling with—but never say?
As a deep observer of humanity, I believe what many are secretly struggling with—but rarely say—is fear and shame.
Not the small kind that flickers at the edge of self-doubt, but the paralyzing kind—the kind that buries itself in work as an excuse to shut humanity out. The kind that hides from love and convinces its victim they must earn the right to be loved. The kind that whispers, “If they ever really knew you, they’d run.”
So many people walk through life hiding—their wounds, regrets, past sins, present struggles, questions, and loneliness. They exist behind walls built for “protection” from rejection, never realizing those same walls have closed off their hearts and kept love from ever reaching them.
But love can’t heal what we hide. Shame thrives in silence, but it loses its power in the presence of truth, kindness, love, and grace. When someone meets you right where you’ve been hiding—with gentleness and compassion instead of judgment and condemnation- something sacred happens. The heart starts to breathe again… maybe even for the first time in decades.
I’ve spent most of this year praying that the Lord would use me as that kind of safe place—for those who have lived too long in fear, shame, self-hatred, unforgiveness, and isolation. I want to help them come into the light—to learn what it means to be fully seen, deeply known, and truly loved. It’s gut-wrenching to me how many people have never been offered such grace—people who are even in the winter of their lives!
I have such a heart to see people free—free from guilt, shame, fear, and hiding. Because when love stays—when it looks at the very thing you think would destroy you if anyone knew and says, “You’re still worth it,”—that’s where freedom begins.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I’m Erika René — a wedding and portrait photographer whose life and work are both built on one calling: to create extraordinary beauty and to love people the way God loves—extravagantly, faithfully, and without condition.
Through Erika René Photography, I serve couples and seniors who value beauty that runs deeper than appearances—beauty born from covenant, from endurance, from the kind of love that still believes even when it’s been tested to its seeming limits. My art isn’t about creating images that are simply beautiful, but about revealing the holiness inside love that stays.
This past year, the Lord has taught me more about love than all my years before combined. I’ve learned that true love isn’t proven by how it’s received, but by how steadfastly it gives. It endures misunderstanding. It selflessly sacrifices in silence. It keeps believing in redemption even when none seems possible. That kind of love refines you—it breaks you open until every act of giving becomes worship.
That same spirit shapes my artistry. Every time I pick up my camera, my desire is to outdo myself in love, creativity, and service—to see people more tenderly, to create more beautifully, to serve more wholeheartedly than I did before. Because excellence, to me, is another way of saying thank You to the One who gave me this calling.
That truth is the heartbeat of everything I create. Every photograph, every story, every act of beauty is my quiet way of saying: love still matters. Faithfulness still heals. Grace still reaches the unreachable.
Erika René Photography isn’t just about pictures—it’s about presence. It’s about reflecting the faithfulness of a God who never stops loving, through every moment I’m trusted to capture.
Okay, so here’s a deep one: Who were you before the world told you who you had to be?
Before the world told me who I had to be, I was a little girl who loved purely and deeply, without fear of being too much. I saw people’s hearts before I saw their flaws. I believed beauty could heal anything and that love could reach anyone if you just didn’t give up. I was larger than life, had a laugh you could hear from miles away, but was sincere in every expression of the entire gamut of human emotion.
Then the world told me that I was too much—felt too much, expressed too much, said too much, loved too much. The world told me that love like that was naïve—that tenderness was weakness—that if I wanted to survive, I needed to protect myself, hide my heart, and earn belonging.
But I didn’t listen. I kept loving, expressing, and feeling deeply anyway. I kept my heart open and tender and poured love into everyone the Lord put in my path, including people who were incapable of receiving it. I was shattered by those same people. (This seems to be a life pattern of mine! LOL—I laugh so I don’t cry… it’s actually not funny at all.) I was told that if I would just shut my heart down and become as cold and unfeeling as everyone else, I wouldn’t hurt anymore.
But I couldn’t do that either. I kept loving. I kept giving. I kept risking. And yes, I kept being taken for granted, taken advantage of, and thrown away like I didn’t matter. But you know what? I’ll never change.
No matter who rejects me or the love I offer, no matter who treats me like I’m not worth loving, I will never stop. Because I am worth loving. I am worth knowing. And I am worth fighting for.
And I will keep loving, serving, giving, and fighting for those who insist on being given up on—because that’s who I was before the world told me who I had to be, and it’s who I’ll always be.
I do everything as unto the Lord and not unto man. And because Jesus is my everything and loves me with an extravagant, everlasting love that never runs out, that is the very reason why I live and love the way I do.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
How long do we have?! HAHAHAHAHA!! Ok, in all seriousness though…
While there have been a handful of catastrophic wounds I could talk about for days, there are two I can think of that rattled me to my core and had me questioning everything in existence — but only one that brought me to the end of myself, changed everything about who I am, what I believe, and how I love. This one shattered me so deeply that only God Himself could put me back together. So, I’m going to tell you about that one, and I’m going to start by saying I didn’t heal this — God did, and He still is!
The deepest wounds in my life haven’t come from failure or loss — they’ve come from love. From loving people who didn’t know how to love back, from giving everything to hearts that couldn’t receive it, and from refusing to stop loving even when it cost me everything. These wounds came from people I loved with everything in me — people I was led to believe loved me as well (but didn’t, because they weren’t capable of it). People I not only prayed for, but would’ve given anything to reach — including laying my own life down for them. After all, the Lord Jesus Christ does tell us, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” — John 15:13
There’s something truly shattering about loving someone who can’t or won’t receive it — especially when a fair amount of time was spent communicating that this love was, indeed, reciprocated. There’s something shattering about someone claiming you as their own and, less than weeks later, gaslighting you, treating you as if you never meant anything, and then completely cutting you off, refusing any kind of communication at all. It’s inhumane. It makes you question everything — your worth, your purpose, even your faith. There’s nothing like the pain of being shut out by the one you felt the Lord sent you to love. It broke me in ways I truly didn’t believe I could survive.
And as someone who deeply values my clients and the experience I give them — someone who pours her entire heart and soul into everything — I didn’t know how I was going to move forward with my business and give my clients everything they deserved from me. I would drive to engagement sessions sobbing the entire way there, begging the Lord to help me stop crying and to give my couples what only He could since I didn’t have anything to give them. I am happy to report that every single session is one where the Lord showed up and showed off!
Even if I sobbed the whole way to a session, the second I got out of my car I had a Cheshire Cat smile on my face, the laughter I’ve always been known for that you could hear from miles away, and an energy and excitement that was off the walls and through the roof. Now, this is how I am when I’m me — but this year, I haven’t been me. I’ve been out of my mind with grief, drowning in a sadness that’s made me feel like my last breath was only moments away. But none of my clients know that, because I’ve shown up to all of their wedding days and engagement sessions bursting with energy and enthusiasm, uncontainable JOY, often jumping up and down, with fresh creativity and more love than ever. I share all of that to show how AMAZING the Lord Jesus Christ is!
This story isn’t finished, and I don’t know how it ends. But God has never let go of me — even when I’ve let go of Him. He’s carried me every step of this year in His strength, giving me His supernatural peace when everything in me was falling apart, comforting me, and allowing me to create the best work I’ve ever created in my life. All with a broken heart. All while grieving. All while praying for Him not to let Satan win in the situation.
He’s taught me more about love this year than ever before (and if you know me at all, you know that’s saying a LOT!).
The Lord has shown me that love’s value isn’t determined by how it’s received — it’s proven by its willingness to stay pure, surrendered, and obedient even when it’s rejected. Healing, for me, hasn’t meant closure, or answers, or understanding. It’s meant surrender and trust — trusting that the love He asked me to give was never wasted, even if it wasn’t returned or received. It’s meant believing that obedience to love is its own victory.
And somehow, through the tears and the silence, He turned that wound into worship. The very place I was shattered became the place where I learned to most love like Him — without condition, without demand, without reciprocity, without being received, and without end.
All of this has changed the way I am, the way I live, the way I love, and the way I create. When I photograph people, I don’t just look for beauty (although I see beauty everywhere and in everyone) — I look for redemption. I look for the story beneath the surface, for the evidence of grace in their eyes (or their longing for it). I remember that love — real love — sees, stays, and serves. My art has become my offering, and my offering has become my healing.
I think our readers would appreciate hearing more about your values and what you think matters in life and career, etc. So our next question is along those lines. What would your closest friends say really matters to you?
I’m 100% confident they’d say that what matters most to me is love. Loving God with everything in me and letting that love spill over into everything I touch. Loving people deeply, faithfully, and without conditions.
They’d say that loyalty, truth, authenticity, and beauty matter to me — not the surface kind of beauty, but the kind that comes from grace, endurance, and redemption. The kind that stays even when everything else falls apart.
I think they’d also say that what matters to me is people feeling seen, known, and valued — because I know what it’s like to feel invisible, misunderstood, and unwanted. That’s why I show up the way I do. Whether I’m photographing a wedding, writing a letter, playing the piano, singing, or praying for someone who’ll never know it, I want every person I encounter to feel the love of Jesus through me.
At the end of the day, that’s what matters most: to love well, to stay soft, to keep showing up with beauty and compassion in a world that’s forgotten how. Because love — the God kind — still changes everything.
Okay, so before we go, let’s tackle one more area. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
That we are not promised tomorrow.
Read that again.
We are not promised tomorrow. Do you believe you’ll wake up tomorrow? Great — I hope you do! But do you realize how many people believe they have another day, another year, another 10, 20, even 30+ years, who will not see the light of another day?
Proverbs 27:1 tells us, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” And James 4:14 says, “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.”
I’ve always deeply understood this. In my short four decades, I’ve watched many loved ones leave this world — all of them much too soon, in my opinion. The truth is, we don’t know when our time on earth is done. This is something I think of often and something that drives the way I live.
If I had my way, we would all love deeply today. There would be forgiveness, restoration, reconciliation, redemption, worship, communication, joy, celebration, laughter, hugs, smiles, kisses — all the things that make life most worth living today. We wouldn’t hide behind our work- shutting out those who love us most, calling it holiness. We wouldn’t lie to each other, hurt each other, hate, cheat, abandon, or betray. We wouldn’t waste our days being bitter, afraid, or ashamed. We would stay soft, open, grateful, and present.
Because if we truly believed we aren’t promised tomorrow, we’d stop waiting for a “better time” to love, to forgive, to say the words that could heal a heart. We’d do it now.
Life is too short to hold back love. We are vapors — here for a moment, then gone. So while I have breath, I want mine to be spent pouring out love, creating beauty, reflecting the glory of the One who gave me both, and pointing others to the Lord Jesus Christ, who died for their sins so they could have eternal life with Him in heaven if they would believe on His name, put their entire faith in Him and His finished work on the cross, and call upon His name to save them (Romans 10:9–13).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://erikarenephotography.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikarenephotography
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/singingphotographer84
Image Credits
Erika Rene Photography
