On my computer my screen saver is set to my iPhoto library, playing pictures at random. Needless to say, there’s a very large variety of pictures within it; taken over the course of the last few years from anywhere and everywhere. My screen saver is often playing, especially when I have my computer at work and have taken a few moments to do something else. A few minutes ago as I was attempting to journal and articulate something of the millions of things that are swirling around in my mind and heart, I stopped typing, and after a few minutes, the screen saver started up.I remember almost every photo I take. I remember where and when I took it, and more than that, the emotional connotation and the context of it. I have grown to love photography so much because of all the meaning it can contain within a single image. As this random slideshow of my own pictures, and namely my life over the last 4 years played tonight, a range of emotion washed over me. I remembered each moment of those pictures, and some seem so long ago, my freshman year of college, though it’s only been 3 years. I remembered the people I’ve known and how we have all changed and grown, and life has surely taken its course.
I’ve been saying for a while now that everything is about to change, and nothing will be the same again. Well, that reality has finally hit. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s my last week here in Colorado Springs before heading back to school next week after being home for what should be my last summer here. Or maybe it’s the fact that yesterday I talked to my best friend over Skype at 7 in the morning my time and 10 pm hers, as she is walking into a new adventure in her life. It might’ve been a text I sent last week that ended up being rather prophetic in nature. It could also be the fact that I said good-bye to Tine’s little sister today who I have known since she was 7 and is heading off to college in a couple weeks. Or maybe it was the conversation I had with my brother today at his apartment, hanging out like we never have before.
But really, it’s not just one of those many things (and many more) that has happened to set reality into motion. In many ways, to classify one of those things to set reality in motion is like looking at one picture in a medley in my slideshow, thinking “that’s when things changed.” A picture is just what it is often coined as, a “snapshot,” referring to one moment captured in time. With as much connotation it can carry, it’s not the full view. But when pictures are compiled upon one another and continue to grow in number, you start to get an accurate picture of the change over a period of time.
There may be pictures from several years ago that remind us of sweet or bitter things. In themselves, they are powerful memories, either moments of bliss or wounds opened. They may remind us of things we do not want to remember. But I think this memory serves us well, because it opens our eyes to what was and if we have allowed things to be healed and changed. They may remind us of hope, an innocence of earlier days that perhaps we have lost sight of in the present yet wish to carry into the future. Memories in themselves are powerful things, just as a snapshot can convey.
But where I believe character is truly shown is over time, over the years. The years reveal what we have learned or haven’t learned, the lessons of God that have brought us through and remain our foundation or the ones we still forget. I believe it exposes our history of inaction or action. I believe it really exposes who we believe God to be, not just in a season or even multiple ones, but in every moment of our lives past, present, and future. I believe that as time progresses, so should we.
It’s why I find myself taking pictures and continue to. It’s why I find myself looking at past ones and remembering. The slideshow of pictures of the past show how little or far we have come and perhaps wakens our eyes to the present and future. The picture-taking adventures I set out on in the present and future occur because I understand that no matter how amazing or memorable the past pictures have been, I know God has more in store, more beauty to reveal, more memories to create, and I would feel I was missing out if I didn’t pursue it to the fullest. I’ve had some memorable picture taking journeys, some smarter than the others, but don’t regret one moment of it. It’s one of my ways of living life to the fullest, or perhaps better said, a metaphor of the act of doing so.
I believe God’s sovereignty to be an incredibly powerful thing, one in which we should always remember and hold fast to. But at the same time, I am coming to understand that His sovereignty is not a reason or excuse not to take action in the very ways He has commanded us to do so. We abuse it then. We don’t hold fast to what He has given and remain good stewards of it. And I know that’s one of the last things I want to do in this life He has given me, to say “Yes Lord, I choose You and Your ways” and then never set out to walk in them or walk in them fully.
It’s not just the iPhoto slideshow that is flooding me with memories. I have so much swirling around in my mind and heart as of the past few days that I can never articulate on my own efforts. God is flooding me with memories, flooding me with truth, flooding me with promises, flooding me with vision, and flooding me with longsuffering hope. Remembering the past, what has shaped me, encouraged me, or even hurt me, helps me to move forward, because it magnifies both what God has done and what I still have yet to let Him fully redeem. Sometimes we have to look back in order to be able to move forward. Sometimes we have to remember the things of the past, whether sweet or difficult, to understand how we can walk into the future. And a lot of the times we have to be reminded of the progression of pictures, the very character we have developed, to realize that over time things do change and we have to walk in them accordingly.
As I started to say earlier, everything isn’t simply going to change, everything already is. There’s been a wave of relative consistency in my life over the last 21 years. There’s a new wave coming. It surely requires me to trust God in ways I haven’t before and see Him move in ways I wouldn’t expect. But the old wave has brought a stronger belief and steadiness in my dear Lord that carries me into the future…that though I may not know, I may not understand, He surely does, and His right hand holds me fast. There is nothing I need doubt of His character or who He is in my life, because He surely works all things out for good, even the most difficult ones. I don’t think this new wave is going to be easy, but I hold so strongly to the belief that God is going to blow me away. The very pictures He has set in place in order to show us the greater mysteries of Him and His love are beckoning me to dive deep within. I want this new wave to show God to be who I know He is and forever will be, and continue to shatter the love and knowledge I have for Him. The Lord is my Keeper. I know my cries are heard, and I know He answers. I know my faith in Him is not in vain. I hold fast to see what He will do in this new wave.
In time, new photos will be added to the library, both holding meaning on its own and building on the medley that shows my life and where God has brought me.
As He has in the past, so He will in the future-He will always lead me through.
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