God rewrote the text of my life when I opened the book of my heart to his eyes. Psalm 18:21 MSG
Tag Archives: Photography
Photos From Friends: Love We Must
It’s been a difficult week. Too much darkness and too many sorrows.
Our hold on our love for life, perhaps a weak grasp.
But love we must.
Love we must.
THE THING IS…
to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, *How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.
ELLEN BASS in “Mules of Love” © 2002, BOA Editions, Ltd.
Run for your life from all this. Pursue a righteous life—a life of wonder, faith, love, steadiness, courtesy. Run hard and fast in the faith. Seize the eternal life, the life you were called to, the life you so fervently embraced in the presence of so many witnesses. 1 Timothy 6:11-12 MSG
Embracing life, running the race with you to win.
Photos from Friends: Hometown
Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life. I’m back home in the house of God for the rest of my life. Psalm 23:6 MSG
I grew up on a Lane, four houses long.
A chestnut tree to climb on, a path through the woods to walk to school.
White colonial homes and wild rose bushes, silhouettes of sailboats and lobster boats . . .
The opera of the gulls . . .the silence of snowfall on the trees. . .
The salty sea air was my breath, the expanse of ocean–my dreams unbounded.
My hometown.
Its beauty lives on within me every day of my life.
Thank you God, for my hometown.
Photos from Friends: Seeing the Beauty
the leaf that wants all the attention
Who out there has a lust for life? Can’t wait each day to come upon beauty? Psalm 34:12 MSG
A camera and a whisper from God sent me on a journey last spring . . . searching for beauty in the pain.
These are the unedited photos I took around my house–as far as I could walk at the time. I saved them in a folder on my computer, entitled it “small victories” and gave them the captions you read here.
These pictures became the evidence of my small victories–the smallest of small baby steps away from pain and darkness into the light and life of healing.
This is the day God started to color my dark world beautiful. The day the simple, ordinary views of my life became extra-ordinary glimpses of the beauty of LIFE all around me.
This is the day I understood the scripture above–that to recover my lust for life–to experience my pain and darkness redeemed–was about eagerly searching each day for the beauty OF LIFE.
Psalm 23:6 says that God’s love and beauty chase after us every day of our lives.
This spring day last year, I finally turned around to see it.
inanimate curves of life
pink from dry leaves
green and growing
growing in the clouds effects
necklace for a dead flower
grids of life
buddies
the designs of life
outside the frame of life
Beauty in blues
Walk on a rainbow trail: walk on a trail of song, and all about you will be beauty.
There is a way out of every dark mist, over a rainbow trail. – Robert Motherwell
Praying for you to turn around and see the beauty and love of God chasing you, where you will find your rainbow trail, and where God colors your life beautiful each and every day.
More Photos from Friends:
Photo: Beauty Chases Us
Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Psalm 23:4 NLT
Your beauty and love chase after me every day of my life.
Psalm 23:6 MSG
More Photos:
The Banner
The Tree
Anything Can Happen: In His Hand
He who forms the mountains, creates the wind, and reveals his thoughts to man, he who turns dawn to darkness, and treads the high places of the earth – the Lord God Almighty is his name. Amos 4:13 NIV
One sunny afternoon, my youngest son and I were skiing in the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. When we stopped at the top of the mountain to admire the view of Mt. Rainier, Carson quickly made a new friend…a sweet little bird, probably hoping for an offering of crumbs.
I snapped this picture, not knowing until later just how perfect it would be. Now, when I look at it, I’m reminded of all the levels on which our Almighty God works. In fact, He works on every level. He created the mountains that I stand in awe of…he sustains them, and all the earth, with His power. He cares for us, His children, who have been perfectly made in His image.
He even provides for the small and simple creatures of the earth, like the little bird who fluttered onto Carson’s hand on that beautiful day.
How often do you pause and think of the mighty power of our God?
When I take time to do that, my own worries and fears are calmed. God created our entire universe in just one week…it’s difficult to even wrap that possibility into our limited realm of thought! Consider a single mountain – vast and enormous – and how God spoke it into being. What incredible power!
Our Lord controls the path of the wind and weather, allowing the perfect amount of sun and rain to fall upon this earth. He begins and ends each day in perfect timed rhythm. He cares for all creatures of the world, no matter how big or small.
This picture gives me a visual reminder of who God is. He is in all things – great and small.
I know that I need not be anxious about anything today, for God holds each and every one of us in His hand.
Brook
Brook is married to Keith, aka the Ranch Boss, and is blessed with 3 awesome boys… Clay, Cole, and Carson the Great. She shares about life on the ranch, bringing up boys, and her many adventures on her blog Babbling Brook.
More Anything Can Happen posts:
Photos: The Tree
Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28 NLT
I was walking alone among these giants…
In a rare, fluid moment of breath, heart, and time…
a single tree spoke.
I returned the embrace of the arms that held me.
I rested.
Feathery light moments passed…then…ever so gently…
a breeze interrupted with a prickly gray mist,
and the tree whispered a nudge.
Heaven retreated.
The tree was voiceless.
My breath breathed of earth, yet…I felt whole, happy, and free.
I’d rested in the arms of home.
And there’s no other place I’d rather be.
© Linda Crawford
Friends Photo: Focus
Today’s photo theme is “Focus” and comes from a new blogger friend, Jim, who shares beauty and wisdom that inspires me each day at his blog: jimfields.wordpress.com
What does “Focus” mean to you?
Sometimes focusing on the details can be rather abstract, confusing, or maybe details just don’t let us see the true beauty. Details can be choppy, crude or even obscure.
When that happens, when the big picture gets lost in the details, we have to step back and look from a different vantage point to see with more clarity.
In other words sometimes the greater beauty is seen in the big picture where the details combine and fit together.
The details of life are the moments, the efforts, the work, the play, the things that happen to us or for us. The larger picture is our goals, where we’re headed in life, what we look forward to…And sometimes life distracts us from the larger picture – usually because we are so intent looking at how to make the best of the moment, or because things don’t always go the way we plan.
The same is true in our religious life. The detail is the life we live day-to-day and the effort we make at helping God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. The larger picture is people, mission is people…It is helping people see the beauty in the life of Jesus Christ, the mind of God.
A balanced Christian life is living the details all the while keeping an eye to Jesus. Sometimes we can see clearly up close…other times to see clearly we have to back off and broaden our vision.
Peace,
Jim
Popular Past Friends Posts:
Winter Beauty
Love Redeemed
