Photos are my love language. Maybe it’s because my dad, who has an entire shelf of alphabetized photo albums, taught me to value them. Maybe it’s because they help me crystalize experiences that would otherwise slip through the fingers of my less-than-stellar memory. Whatever the cause, their purpose feels far more enchanting than functional. More like the floating magical dreams caught by the Big Friendly Giant in Roald Dahl’s children’s book, stored safely in jars to be ever-so-sweetly mixed and then released at just the right time. Pictures not only capture the people and places I love, but the wonder of our experiences together, safely suspended in time until they are revisited and released again, mingling with fresh memories and forming something altogether new.
As I was recently looking through photos to fill the empty frames in my hallway, a trip we took to Yosemite captured my attention. It was almost as if the spray from the waterfall was once again drenching everything within reach of the trail, leaving a vibrant rainbow and making us laugh like little kids in a rainstorm while fingers of sunlight reached dramatically through the trees to warm our wet bodies and call us higher. The whole trip came back to mind. John hiking the slick stone steps on his barely-healed broken ankle, riding bikes through the meadows and hiking through the trees with mosquitos hot on Madison’s trail, lying on our backs on the pavement in the dark of night to see the stars in their multitudes, playing games in the big log cabin cafeteria as Chase and Madi regaled us with their wit.
The funny thing is that I’m not in most of the photos. This is partly because I take far more than the rest of my family. But it’s also because I love to trail behind, letting my vision soak in the magnificent view of my favorite people enjoying themselves; savoring the togetherness of it all; feeling deeply fulfilled knowing that I’m an intimate part of this family and experience. I think that’s why the pictures from my perspective feel especially rich and personal.
As I was reflecting on this, I couldn’t help but imagine how we might misunderstand the snapshots of our lives. When we don’t see God in the picture, we think he must have been missing; that we were alone. But what if he was so very present that he was savoring each moment, freezing it in time through the richness of his perspective, moved to his core by the intimacy of time with us through each life experience? Not only the good ones, when it’s easy to laugh and love, but how much more through the hard, painful, confusing times when the heart of a loving parent bleeds for their child and draws closer yet.
For those who have lacked meaningful connection with others, who have been mistreated or abandoned by those who were supposed to love them most, he sets them in families (Psalm 68) where they will find the belonging they’ve longed for. When we are held by the security found in this kind of love, revisiting even the hardest, most bitter memories is possible because they are mixed with something new and sweet, something redemptive that transforms them as they are released. This is because of our Father who loves us. Who was always there. More than we will ever know.
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