July 11, 2012

• {looking through the lens of another kind}
  
  it was right after the picture of everyone playing football at our 4th of july party..
  i went to take another shot, and looking through the viewfinder i saw the screen do a funny tilt to the side.
  the shutter opened and closed in a noisy way that i knew wasn’t right.
  i pulled it back and looked at the screen- black halfway up, only the tops of the trees and sky showing.
  i took another picture. same thing.
  flipping the dials around, i checked my settings. still the same.
  turned it off and on again. same.
  
  i took the lens off and looked inside. cause that’s what i’ve seen real photographers do.
  securing it back on, then grabbing the end to give it a little squeeze back and forth,
  just to be sure it was on good and tight.
  another shot. no difference.
  
  i felt a heavy sigh fill up inside me.
  my camera had been having issues for awhile. but not like this.
  not black. completely unusable. broke?
  
  i asked my girlfriend, deb, who really is a photographer, what she thought.
  she’s a nikon girl. but i don’t hold that against her.
  she was sweet and took alot of time to try to figure it out.
  
  i felt hopeful.
  
  but still. no change.
  
  she gave me the name of the camera guy she uses.
  i called that night and left a message.
  then, first thing in the morning, calling again to say, “did you get my message?“
  
  he was just leaving. but would be in in the morning, i could come then.
  he said he thought he knew exactly what it was.
  it would take all of 2 seconds to fix, and there’d be no charge.
  
  i repeated, “no charge?” just to be sure.
  because nothing is ‘no charge’ these days. even time.
  and when he confirmed that’s what he said, i felt relief.
  and hopeful~
  
  still. i worried on and off that thursday about it.
  what if he couldn’t fix it?
  what if he could!!  but it cost alot? {as in, more than ‘no charge’} 
  
  and it’s silly, i know.
  after all, it’s only a camera. i get that.
  
  but if you’ve ever felt that the money to repair your broken camera wasn’t even an option right now,
  then perhaps you’ll get those worried thoughts that seemed to stand all around the parameter’s of my mind.
  
  i don’t like talking about money.
  it’s just.. well, awkward.
  
  and the fact that i live in a home with brick and drywall.
  that i’m warm and full and have food in my fridge..
  and not only that i have more than one pair of shoes to wear, but shoes at all! 
  that i have a husband who loves me and kids that are healthy and thriving.
  oh, i know i am not lacking. i am rich in ways where riches matter most.
  
  but discontentment can shake my heart at every bump in the road.
  and comparison creeps in like a thief. silent, unaware.
  until my joy is gone and i’m nothing but bad attitudes and complaints, and wonder why.
  
  the book, radical, sits on shayne’s side of the bed.
  i read the first chapter and stopped.
  now, seeing the very title screams conviction at me. 
  
  i think i want that. to be radical about Jesus. in my obedience to him.
  but then. do i really?
  
  on friday morning when the camera guy says it can’t be fixed, he could try, but he’s doubtful.
  he’s only seen one other time a camera has done this. it’s too tiny of a repair. too delicate.
  he’ll ruin the camera all together. he suggests it’s best to, “simply buy a new one.”
  
  did he say, “simply.”
  
  and in those moments, i seem to want nothing to do with being radical.. about anything.
  i just want to be like the normal jones’s next door.
  to go out and buy myself a new camera if i need one, thank you very much!
  
  then suddenly, in the midst of packing to go camping, it all just got to me..
  and i laid right down across my bed.
  all stretched out from one side to the other, face buried deep.
  and i cried. a big ugly kind of cry.
  
  at the end of it all, there wasn’t a particular wave of spiritualness that swept over me.
  a prayer i prayed,  yielding it all to God and poof, my emotions changed.
  
  no. i got up. wiped my face and blew my nose and finished packing.
  ..and the inward battle continued to churn.
  
  each time i saw something this weekend i wished i could have a picture of, i felt a bit of an ache.
  a slight choking in my throat.
  and if you haven’t figured out by now, the battle is about far more than wanting a new camera..
  that’s only the surface issue.
  
  the deeper one is when God doesn’t seem to show up like you thought he would.
  when what you had hoped. prayed. believed. doesn’t happen.
  when that thing, or sometimes, everything, seems to go the opposite. what then?
  
  do i continue to trust.
  that he is {still} bigger. and capable. and good.
  that he is LOVING?
  
  that is the battle.
  is God who he really says he is?
  not, is God who he says he is when everything is going as you want.
  but when, and most especially, when it’s not.
  
  and yet, even as truth blares loud in my soul, the shadows of doubt creep in..
  that feeling that it has just been one.thing.after.the other.after.the.other. {anyone?}
  and where is the other side, the through?
  the testimony of answered prayer and evidence of his glory?
  
  but then. among the questions and doubts..
  the worry that sneaks in about the future. the struggle over finances. wondering what God is up to~
  and times i wish it were all just “simply,” as the camera man said.
  
  ..somewhere, deep underneath all that, there’s a comfort.
  
  not that things will be fixed and solved as i want,
  but that even when it’s not, he’s still there. still God.
  not just some God far away. but unacquainted with what i feel.
  an intimate God. one who not only gets what i feel. but understands and accepts it.
  
  i don’t have to hide my feelings from him. to be ashamed or feel what i feel doesn’t matter.
  i can question and i can lay on my bed and cry big ugly tears.
  i can tell him i don’t understand. that i don’t like it.
  
  and always, always the invitation is the same -
  “come to me all you who are burdened and weighed down..”
  
  burdens are many things. different for us all. but hard just the same.
  and our hearts are laid right over with emotions we can’t always even put into words.
  yet with burdens and weights. and limping, and maybe even crawling, at times we so feel we are..
  still. and in it all. we can come.
  
  and in the coming. even though the battle rages on. there is rest~
  

  • 8:35 am
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