June turned 8 months old earlier this week, on Monday the 12th. Brooke and I are constantly looking at each other and saying, "How do we have an eight month old already? HOW!?" It's flying by and while most parents say, "Oh...just stay small forever." I say, "Grow! Let's start walking, talking and playing!" Every time June develops something new in her repertoire of tricks I love it! Especially since I have never been a huge fan of just holding babies because I like to play. And the more June is able to play the more I love being a dad.
Whenever June celebrates another month of life Brooke and I grab our iPhones and snap a few shots to announce it to the internet world!
This time around we took her outside to shoot a few photos of her in the grass being super cute and as happy as she always is!
I can't even. 😭😍
After a few photos in the grass I wanted to grab a selfie of the family. So Brooke picked up June and we turned the camera around and snap!
This is the photo we took.
Look at those light rays being all brilliant and beautiful. They were not added as a filter, they were just in the original photo. I looked at this photo over and over again after we took it I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by the goodness of a loving God. The brilliance of His light and love is always around us. Most of the time it goes unnoticed or ignored. Sometimes though, if we are looking through the right lens, we can see it, capture it and marvel at it.
The spectrum of light is always around us. Our eyes normally can't see it's beautiful colors but every now and then, either through a rainbow or a camera lens, we actually can see it. By seeing or capturing it, we don't create it's beauty, we just acknowledge it. The beauty is always there. We just have to look through the right lens to see it..
Jesus is the light of the world and the beauty of His grace is always there for us to see, but we have to look for it. We have to train our eyes. Often, I think we feel that the beauty isn't there, but I really believe that we just aren't seeing it. God's beauty shines all around us all the time and we just need to take the right snap shots to catch it, see it and enjoy it. We need to realize that the beauty of light isn't a product of our circumstances but a truth of our heart. So even when darkness clouds our world, we know that the light is shining in our changed hearts. That we can count it all joy, even in suffering, because our world doesn't dictate the light in our lives, but the unflinching, unrelenting love of Jesus does!
Later in the afternoon on Monday, I took this photo of June with my phone...
As followers of Jesus we need to always be doing two things. We need to constantly be seeking the light. Whenever Brooke and I go for a walk, she is always going off course to find the best light. All of a sudden she will stop mid-sentence and walk off to look at the way light is coming through the trees or shining on a wall. It's what makes her a brilliant and amazing photographer. She is constantly looking for the best light -- because that creates the best photo. And sometimes we need to go off course and find the best light -- because that will create the best life. We need to find the light in everything so we can show the light and love of Jesus in everything.
The second thing we need to do is just marvel at it - marvel at the light in all it's brilliant, sparkly glory. I snapped that photo of June because she was doing just that. She was just marveling at the light as it came through our front door windows and landed on our wood floor. Most times, I really struggle at simply marveling at the light God has created around me. I pack my days full of work, play and everything else, but rarely do I just marvel. Rarely do I just sit back and thank God for the beauty of His unending grace and love. I think we need to add more marveling in our lives. Have you ever seen a group of people all looking in one direction. You start rubbernecking to see what they are looking at. Cause you gotta know what they are marveling at!! We, as Christians, need to start doing the same thing. Let's just marvel at Jesus and I think people will start to rubberneck and ask us what we are looking at.
When we start to search out and marvel at the light I think we will start to see our lives being refreshed over and over again. We will see beauty where most people see despair. We will see joy when there is suffering. We will see Jesus in all and through all. And when we see the light we can direct others to see the it too.
So today, marvel in the light. Be drenched in the beauty and brilliance of it's rays over and over and over again.