perspective

When I was in high school I mastered the art of the self-portrait. I got really good at holding the camera out in front of me, turning it around, and getting a nicely framed image that didn't provide a clean shot of my nasal cavities. I got so good that I even took pictures with three, four, and even five people crowded around me, without cutting off anyone's eye or forehead or chin.

I also have freakishly long arms, but that's beside the point.

Every one in awhile, I would be taking pictures of something far off in the distance, then say to my friend, "Oh, let's get one together!" I'd turn my camera around, snap a pic, then we'd peer into the tiny viewfinder to see how the picture came out. Instead of two smiling faces, we'd see two foreheads, or two obscenely large eyes staring back at us. I'd been taking pictures with my zoom lens, then forgot to "zoom out" before taking the self-portrait.

Taken out of context, a picture like that is very difficult to figure out. What is it? Who is it? Where is it? Sometimes the zoomed in version was not a nice one - sometimes it brought into focus that pimple on my forehead, or got an awkward angle of my neck and made it look like I had a double chin. When I zoomed out and took the picture again, those huge glaring flaws faded into the background as the big picture was revealed.

Life is a lot like a picture, and we as earthly humans can only see a tiny bit of the picture. We can only see the awkward, zoomed-in, pimple-magnifiying version. Sometimes, our view is not a nice one. Sometimes we struggle with things like health, finances, family crises, or relational issues. We wonder why God lets "bad" things happen to "good" people. We question God: What should I do? Who should I marry? Where should I go?

The good news is, there's someone who can see the whole picture. The bad news is, we might never see the whole picture this side of heaven. But we do have a promise from our divine photographer, and it give us hope when all we can see is the zoomed-in pimply version of our picture and wonder what good could ever come of it.

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Jeremiah 29:11

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And before you freak out, no, I'm not having a major life crisis. I'm just dealing with that "one thing after another" phenomenon in which one thing breaks or goes wrong, it gets fixes, and then another thing breaks or goes wrong. I'm clinging to the hope that God has good things in store for me and trust that He is taking care of the details -- including fixing my computer, which just so happened to completely self-destruct this weekend.

Yeah.

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PS: How awesome was this prayer, which a certain Swedish 8th grader said during homeroom prayer this morning??

Dear Lord Jesus, please cleanse Miss Bertschi's computer, please heal it, and restore it to full health so that the files she uses for homework are not deleted. Amen.