Snapshots, moments preserved. My cousin, Shanna, shared this picture of me, my sister & my brother when we met for lunch the other day.  She had seen it at her mom’s & snapped a picture of it with her phone.  While we were visiting, she said, “Oh I have to show you this.”  We laughed.  I asked her to send it to me.  I then forwarded to Bonnie & Will.  Shanna & I were pretty sure that Mary Ellen, Sam, & any of Will’s boys looked like us.  So I mentioned that fact in my text.  In the text I used Daniel, guess he was the target.  Ooops, sorry!  Will said he thought it would be awfully hard to get Daniel in those pants.  We all laughed a little more.

This small, old picture brought a smiles all around that day.  It made me start thinking.  Our lives are made up of a series of snapshots.  When we greet someone at the post office, when we stop & visit at the grocery store, when we drop a text to say “thinking of you”, when we post on Facebook, when we sit on the couch for a good long visit with a friend, everyone gets snapshots of our lives.  Even our spouses get snapshots.  The only one that doesn’t get snapshots is God.

God does not get snapshots.  He is with me every step of every day.  I am a baptized, believing Christian.  When I was baptized, I received the gift of the Holy Spirit.  He dwells in me.  That means, He doesn’t get the summary.  He experiences every moment of every day with me.  He has got to be scratching His head most of the time!  I know He says, “What was she thinking?!!!” Hopefully in those few moments He can have a small sigh of relief, “Maybe she is listening a little…, whew, sure helps when she shuts her mouth.”

My immediate question to myself now is, “Everyone sees snapshots.  Do those briefs moments captured in some else’s eye see Christ’s love in me?”

A little food for thought:

And He said to him, ” ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, & with all your soul, & with all your mind.’ This is the great & foremost commandment.  The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’  On these two commandments depend the whole Law  & the Prophets.” Matthew 22:37-40

Love is patient, love is kind, & is not jealous; love does not brag & is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 1 Corinthians 13:4-9

Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed & truth. 1 John 3:18

There is no fear in love; but perfect love cast out fear, because fear involves punishment, & the one who fears is not perfected in love.  We love, because He first loved us.  1 John 4:18-19