Photographs of God

According to Facebook, I have been married 321 days!  That is the craziest thought in the world to me.  April 14th is our "dating" anniversary, and May 23rd is our wedding anniversary.  It is crazy how time flies.  Looking back at our wedding day, I remember thinking just how fast the day went by.  All that planning, and coordinating, and shopping, and making sure that everything was perfect, and as soon as the day began, it was over.

Thank goodness for photographs, though.  Cameras have to be one of the best inventions ever.  It's amazing how far the technology has progressed.  I remember when I got my first digital camera... It was about 3.5 megapixels and at the time THAT was amazing.  My very first camera, however, was one of those small rectangular ones that used the 100 speed film.  You even had to have the extra flash attachment to make it work right in darker settings.  Now, I have a 12 megapixel camera that takes phenomenal pictures, and it certainly gets its use, because I take pictures of EVERYTHING.

Looking back at our wedding day, I certainly couldn't tell you half of the details of how things went and I couldn't tell you who all was there, but the photographs certainly help to let me see my wedding day, the way everyone else saw it.  Of course, I DID have the best view, standing at the front of the altar, looking into Nathan's eyes, and pledging our love to one another before God and before our families and friends.  But photographs are special.  One of the neatest things we did at our wedding was get personalized disposable cameras and placed them on all the tables.  I know, it's nothing original because people do it all the time, but it gave us pictures of our wedding from the perspectives of the people who were there.  I have two whole albums filled with those pictures.  There were also tons of pictures on Facebook as well as pictures that were went to us from family and friends, all of which help to build an amazing memory of the most special day of my life.

But there is something theological about a photograph, the way it captures one tiny millisecond in history and allows us to look back with an emotional attachment to that one little moment.  To me, scripture is like that, too.  Scripture catches a moment in history and depending what you are going through at the time you read it, or depending on your perspective and memory that scripture may mean something different to you than it does to someone else.  The Bible is composed of writing by many authors, each with a little camera that God has given them to capture God in the world and to show God to those who may have missed Him.  Many different perspectives come together in this one work that we call the Bible, something central to our faith and understanding of God.  We may not be able to look back at times in our lives, and remember every detail.  We may not be able to look back at our tough moments, or our happy moments and see God right there, but scripture points us in the right direction and shows us where God is working in our lives.  We may not see God face to face, but scripture sure does give us a nice photograph.