A Person Inside the Picture

Keds x Kate Spade Shoes

DIY Flower Crown

Francesca’s Dress

There’s something about pictures that I just love! I just looooooooooveee them! I look through my Photo Roll on my phone all of them time. I love going back days, weeks, months and years looking at old photos. Photo’s capture a moment in a split second and they allow you to relive that moment over and over and over. When I look back at my photos, it allows me to remember how I felt in that moment, what I was doing, the kind of person I was, who my friends were, etc. One picture can trigger a million different thoughts.

Looking at these pictures, a few things come to mind but there are two particular ones that stick out more than others. The first thought is how much fun I had with the best photographer ever, Keelyn, while she shot these pictures. They all turned out so beautiful and we had a blast hanging and laughing outside at the park the day after Thanksgiving. If I really examine the pictures, I also remember a painful memory this dress triggers. The dress itself isn’t bad, I really like the dress, but when my sister gave it to me last year for Christmas, a few painful months followed. Clothes can also trigger memories for me, so when I look at pictures and the clothes in them, especially these photos, I am immediately pulled back in time and can remember very clearly how I felt.

To me, there’s one thing a picture is missing though, the experience. There’s me, a living breathing human being and then there’s the picture of myself frozen in time. Once the photo is captured it freezes a specific moment. I’ll use the pictures above as an example, we’ll call them “white dress photos“. These photos were taken on November 27, 2015 during a 2-hour time span. In those 7200 seconds, 120 minutes or 2-hours, there were many moments captured. During some of those moments I was walking a dog, playing in a tree, getting rained on and most likely laughing because I can’t take myself seriously while posing in a dress at 10 AM as joggers sprint past me, most likely running off their turkey dinner. Their all just moments. But what happened before all of these white dress photos were taken. I have a full 25 years of my life leading up to these so called “moments” captured on camera. And what about after the pictures were taken. What happened after? There is a full story leading up to the white dress photos, the actual photos being taken, and then my life story continuing on after Keelyn snapped my last photo.

The experience is what happened before, during and after the photo shoot. The experience is me, a person inside of the picture.  If you don’t know who I am, my traits, characteristics, quirks, or how my personality operates, you will feel disconnected from my pictures. There’s me as a person. Then there’s me in my pictures, frozen still. You cannot truly experience my white dress photo shoot without the pictures, or hearing the story, but it really comes down to experiencing me as a person and understanding my characteristics. If a stranger looked at my white dress photos and read the story of what happened during my photo shoot it would still be really hard for them to make the story come alive because they don’t know who I am. On the other hand, my family and friends know my personality and if I re-tell them stories from this day, or even stories of evens that happened before or after, they are able to re-create the moments in their head and could easily visualize how the day went. Not because they know the story better than the stranger, but because they know who I am. They have already experienced me as a person outside of the picture, therefore they can experience me as a person inside the picture. If you know me and my personality, you can look at the photos and probably imagine I was jumping around, spinning, laughing, talking, and not being very serious.

It reminds me so much of the Bible. There was Jesus death, and then there’s the before and the after. Jesus death was just a moment, there was a full story leading up to his birth, and then the story continued when He was brought back to life. The Bible continues, just like my life continues after Keelyn snapped my last photo. You can hold the Bible, look at it, read it, judge it, rip it, turn it upside down, and study it until your brain hurts. You can even hear other people tell stories about the book you just read. They can give a play by play of how the book has helped them, insights they have gotten and how they have experienced it but there’s still the disconnect. Just like my pictures above, if you don’t know me, you can’t truly experience me by just looking at my pictures. The Bible is meant so you can experience it for yourself. You can read the Bible for yourself, memorize it, re-tell stories others have told you, and never really experience God for yourself.

For me, there was a always a disconnect with the Bible and an experience. I grew up knowing about God, the Bible and His love but never truly experiencing it for myself. I would look at the Bible and look at my life and feel so disconnected. I knew a lot about God but I did not know Him as a person. You may not have been able to experience these pictures with me when they were taken, but you can experience me anytime. You may not have been there when Jesus was living on earth but you can experience Him just the same, if not more today because we have His Holy Spirit inside of us.  It’s as simple as a quick call or text, communicating with me (or Him) that you want to experience the full person I am (or He is). Just like you can get to know and experience the person inside of a picture, you can fully experience the man who inspired the Bible. You can actually know Him and not just read about Him. How great is that?!

There’s a soul inside my picture. There’s also a loving Daddy’s heart inside His word.

You can look at my picture, study my face, hold it. You can look at the Bible, study the pages and turn it.

But if you never experience me for yourself, what moves my heart, my personality, my joy, my dreams, you never get to know the person inside of the picture.

There’s also a person inside the Bible. A loving Daddy with a big heart. A true person that you can know and experience. He has dreams, desires, and a love that I could never explain.

I ask you, challenge you, encourage you to seek out the Daddy inside the Book. Ask Him to show you His characteristics. Call him up and ask to experience Him for yourself. His loving heart towards you.
I promise you, when you experience a Father’s love. You will never be the same.