He is clearly seen.

The art of photography is diverse in so many ways.  I find that the photographs I take & the ones I end up loving are diverse as well.  Take for example the one yesterday of Mak with the flower in her hair.  Colors are muted and moody.  Yesterday the muted colors and moodiness of the shot moved me.  Today, bright & bold colors moved me.  It’s far from perfect – her hair is kinda crazy but I suppose that is why I like it so much.  It’s imperfect.

She really is a beautiful child young girl.  I must say, however, her outer beauty pales in comparison to what God’s created on the inside.  We were out of town for her birthday & had a sweet time together.  I’ll post more soon, but here are two new ones.

Sometimes I like to find unanticipated places to shoot.  Here, she’s in front of a big huge dumpster.  Who woulda thought?

I just so happened to find something Livy has been desperate for ….. she’s wanted one for quite some time.:

She played with it for hours yesterday, exclaiming more than once that she is just like Kit.

My husband and I met in Cheyenne, Wyoming.  I went out to Cheyenne with a friend so that we could go to the rodeo in town.  That was July 1994.  He was living out there at the time.  When I came home from my trip out there, I knew I’d marry him – even after just meeting him.  During our courtship, we wrote lots and lots of love letters.  I went looking for all of them in preparation for Valentine’s Day.  What a treasure I found.

I’m an extremely sentimental person.  I have hundreds of letters and cards given to me from my parents, grandparents, brother, sister & friends.  I began reading a bunch of them when I uncovered them this week.  Some of them made me weep because my loved ones are no longer here.  The letters were bittersweet because I miss them with an ache in my heart that will never be lessened.  The sweetness was that I have these notes and sentiments.  

This is one my grandma and grandpa wrote me on November 3, 1968.  I was born that year….and I found it to be so cute.  If you push on the kitty’s nose, you hear a squeak from a little squeaky thing hidden inside the postcard.  It was pretty high tech for 1968!

This next one is a letter written by my other grandma when I was in college.  She references Valentine’s day and a wonderful “fellow” that she knows I’ll meet.  She closes by telling me that she prays for me everyday.  It turned my heart to mush.  I’ve literally got hundreds of these letters and cards.  Aren’t I blessed?

I’ve got some other photographs to share from a sweet Valentine’s day but I just wanted to share what really matters today.  Love.  All different kinds of love.

Art (ärt) n. 1. Human effort to imitate, supplement, alter, or counteract the work of nature.  That is a definition taken from the dictionary.  My definition is:  Art (ärt) n.  Human effort to imitate the work of God.  When I make a photograph or get an idea to make one, I’m really just imitating God.  I’m reflecting back to Him something He’s already created.  As hard as I try, it never comes close to what He’s done – because the imitation of something is never as good as the original.  Imagine that.  Nothing we create can ever be as good as what He’s already created.  Somehow, however, He’s given me grace enough so that I can actually enjoy my imitations of His creation.

My imitation of Livy….and beautiful light:

And the truth is that she loves taking photos as much as I love making them.  Her papa & sister were away doing a volleyball thing today so we had some fun this morning.  I’ll bet you can figure out which one was her idea.

Many of you who visit this site know that I am a Christian.  I know you’ve seen things on this site referring to the God that I adore.  I also know that the term Christian means lots of different things for people and many stereotypes have been generated by the loose use of that term so I won’t automatically assume that you know what I mean.  When I say that I am a Christian, I mean that I follow Jesus Christ and I believe that the Bible is the Word of God.  I believe every word of the Bible, literally (and just so we are clear about the Bible, I must tell you that there is only one Bible.  There are not additional books or writings as some might lead you to believe).

Why in the world am I blogging about this?  Because the Gospel is something I need to share with you. Gospel means good news.  And friend, this good news couldn’t be any better.  

Now I have to say this:  this is my business site and I know that it isn’t the best business sense to share my faith here.  The problem with that is this:  there isn’t anything more important than Jesus Christ and what you decide about Him.  No business….no photographs…nothing more important.  And so I trust that God will do with me what He wishes.   And I’m so very satisfied with that.

Now, a bit about God.  The God who created everything is perfect.  And because He is perfect, He is just. That means that He cannot permit evil.  He cannot permit sin.  So, the first step toward Him is acknowledging that you’ve done things wrong – you aren’t perfect and neither am I.  When we tell Him that we’ve messed up and that we are sorry, He’ll forgive us.  And that’s the truth.  He won’t hold it against you or me.  He promises.  If you have a bible and want to look that up – check out 1 John 1:8-9.  If you don’t have a Bible and want to look it up, go to www.blueletterbible.org.  

I want to say one more thing about God’s forgiveness.  It’s pretty astonishing.  There isn’t anything that He doesn’t forgive.  Nothing.  That amazes me & I hope that attribute of His touches your heart.  

I’m sure you’ve heard somewhere along the way that Jesus is God’s Son who came to die for all of our sins.  If you’ve never heard that, I’m sorry.  I’m sorry because we Christians haven’t done a good job screaming the good news.  Jesus is sinless.  He is perfect and because we aren’t perfect, we need Him to cover our sins.  He covered them and removed God’s judgement against us when He died on the cross.  Once He made that sacrifice for us and if you believe in Jesus & accept Him, you become a child of God.  Again, if you have a Bible, look at John 1:12.

You can only get to heaven through Jesus.  That may not be politically correct but don’t be misled into believing that there are many different paths to heaven.  That is a lie.  A big fat lie.  Unfortunately many are believing that lie.  You can find that truth in John 14:6.  Remember – there is only one truth.  There cannot be two things that differ and still have truth.  One of those things has to be non-truth.

Something else – if you think you are pretty good and because you do good things you’ll get to heaven you are wrong.  Being loving and volunteering and donating money are all good things but you can’t earn your way to Heaven.  You can see that in Ephesians 2:8-9.  

Finally, if you decide to believe in and accept Jesus Christ as your savior, God expects you to follow Jesus Christ with all of your heart and to put Him even before yourself; to put Him before your family…..even your children.  You can see that in Luke 9:23-24.

One final thing.  And please know that I say this with all of the love in my heart.  If you haven’t previously accepted Jesus Christ, don’t ignore this message now.  God brought you here right this minute for a reason. He’s reaching out to you.  Ignoring this message and not contemplating it and not talking to God about it right this minute is very a bad plan.  Very bad.  

So, after all of that the bottom line is that if you want to go to Heaven (i) you must acknowledge you’ve done things wrong (against God); (ii)  you must accept and acknowledge Jesus Christ as your savior; (iii) understand that there is only ONE way to heaven – not by being “good” and doing good things nor by believing that something or someone other than Jesus can get you there.  The only way is through Jesus.  Nothing more; and (iv) you’ve got to commit your life to Jesus above everything and everyone else.  I know, that may sound difficult but the joy in living that way is incomparable.

I love Jesus very much.  And I love the Bible…..I love reading it and studying it.  If you want someone to talk to about God, please email me with your phone number and I’ll call you.  If you want someone who will tell you a bit about the Bible or if you’d like to study the Bible, please email me.  If I know you or if I don’t, I will call you.  And I’ll be so full of joy that I get a chance to talk to you.