Insights: Like a Son and a Dad

(...An excerpt from a letter to my son...)

Mistakes are what God allows us to make so we can learn from them. Our mistakes are not what hold us down. It is how we choose to react to them that determine what they mean in our lives.  If we allow them to fester, they never heal – they only serve to destroy everything that is good.

God creates a path – a series of paths really – for us to choose from, but even the best of paths are filled with dangers.  He allows us to make our own choices, but he desires to walk with us on whatever path we choose.  It is what we do as we travel along that path that reflect who we are.  We can choose to allow pot holes and difficult terrain to slow our progress, to make us angry, frustrated, and distant, bitter or apathetic.  We can allow trials and tribulations to fill our lives with uncertainty and fear, or, we can see them as humbling challenges. When we fall, we can choose to extend our right hand toward our heavenly father to lift us – help us rest – so he can place us safely on his shoulders to carry us across that difficult ground. Once across the gauntlet, He will set us upon that path again and place his hand on our shoulder to guide us through more difficult circumstances. Like the good father he is, he will challenge us to face our fears –show us where we went wrong and then point the way back to safety.  He allows us to reap the rewards and setbacks of our decisions.  Yet, He will embolden us to persevere through whatever comes our way.  He touches our hearts with compassion and fills it with confidence, and most importantly, he helps us discover what the love of a father really means.

 He will do this even for Daddy’s who made too many mistakes with their own sons. Amid the chaos, He provides clarity about knowing the distinction between going it alone - and reaching for his strength.  This realization comes from a heart that has shared such moments with him – like a son and his dad – which is like it should be…

Insights - From the Prairie

A new series starts today. I call it Insights. 

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In the half-light of pre-dawn, a shrouding haze subdued the warmth of the rising sun as I stood on a prairie knoll.  Surrounding me were miles of Oklahoma’s Tallgrass Prairie. The Oklahoma wind, already sweeping across the land, gently whispered to me and I felt at once lonesome and at peace.  Within A moment the sun burned through the haze and cast a golden glow across the prairie, and what was once trapped in darkness...became light.

Too often we allow distractions to darken our perspectives like the dim ambient light I encountered during this prairie moment. A time eventually comes when we must stand exposed on the grassy knoll of truth about God’s word.  When we do, then his words will clear the haze from our lives and his love will whisper gently to us...and renew our lonesome spirit.           

Cropping for Impact

Sometimes I take a picture understanding that I will more than likely crop it down to create a new image out of it. Usually it is because I do not have the correct lens available or something is just a bit too far away and I have to settle.

Cropping does not require any kind of advanced understanding of techniques, it is more a matter of being able to identify the photograph within the photograph, then removing all the distractions. Here's an example. The top image was the original. It's okay, but to my eye the photograph in the photograph fell upon the middle leaf (bottom photo). There was just a bit too much stuff in the original.

Here's another example. In this case the main attraction was just too far away. As a result it was pretty well lost in all the clutter surrounding it, but by cropping in very tight, the main subject now becomes the main subject. Things to avoid though are unseen distractions that can foul up a shot. In this case a stem from another plant intersects the image from top to bottom creating somewhat of a distraction.

Anyway, don't be afraid to crop your images. Many times if you look for the image within the image, you'll become better equipped to see the shot in the field before you even take it.

Keith