Changing up the lens

I entitled this Blog 'Through the lens of Motherhood" for a few reasons. 1) I am a photographer by trade so I view a lot of life through a lens of a camera. I look for things in life that have beauty, even the ugly can be seen as beautiful if you look at it correctly. A broken down old barn, a dirty canal in Venice, a rusted out old truck, an old and broken window are all things that through the right lens can be made into something of beauty. Looking at people and objects or nature through a lens allows you to see things that you wouldn't normally see, it gives you a chance to see something dirty and old become new and fresh, maybe even something you might actually hang on your wall.

I have tried to take that act of 'looking through a lens' into my life as a mum as well. The daily grind can be just that if you are looking at it with unseeing eyes, but if you put the right lens on you can see beauty at every turn. I see the boys differently, I see my husband differently and more importantly I see God differently.

Through the lens of motherhood I see the love of God, the love I feel for my boys, though not nearly as great as God's love for me, is unconditional and allows me to see God through a new lens. Today as I watched Josh playing with Kaleb I reflected on my love for them and I was struck again by how my heart has grown since knowing these two fast growing little men. The smallest accomplishments are something I rejoice in, their failures or setbacks are things I want to encourage them at, when they make a mistake I correct them  and get them to try again and when they are 'naughty' (for lack of a better word) I set about teaching them a better way. It made me think about God's judgement, and how so often it is said that God's judgement is contradictory of His love. Yet, as I watched these two kids I realized that if I didn't care, if I didn't love them so much I wouldn't care how they turned out. If they ended up violent or addicts or mean or... well, anything negative, it wouldn't matter to me at all because I would only care if I loved them.

When I see God lovingly correcting me or teaching me, I often stop and realize that he must love me a great deal to care enough to want me to change and grow into someone more beautiful.

The same can be said of the difficult times of suffering in our lives, we can look at it and see all the negative things that have happened and we can dwell there, or we can slip on a new lens and see all the ways that God is loving us through the trials of life. On Sunday we heard a sermon about mountain top experiences and living in the valley, and while the views in on the peaks are stunning; as someone who once lived in a valley I can promise you that there is beauty there as well. We can look up to see the majestic mountains, we can see the green of the grass and smell the wild flowers. Valley's don't have to be a place of darkness.

This is a random post, I realize that, but in an endeavor to share my thoughts with you I sometimes ramble. My hope for you today is that you find a new lens, or take a fresh look at the one you already have on. Life is beautiful, even when it hurts and everywhere you look there is evidence of God's infinite love for you.