When we are used to going about doing things we need to do each day, we forget to pause and see the beauty in the world around which includes us until God reminds us. A perfect example would be my daily walks to my review which takes a mile or so to reach. It used to irritate me that they weren’t located on the main road. I could make a long list of reasons to justify why I shouldn’t have to walk.
Wanting to find something good in it, I decided to have my quiet time in those daily walks. Slowly, things around me became…different. Talking to God as I walked helped vent out my issues of yesterday. As I continue my walk, a sense of peace sets in somehow. It felt okay to look forward to the day ahead. And this time when I look around, I notice that the sky is a brilliant blue, the sun’s heat is just right, and sometimes a butterfly or a dragon fly would even hover around me as if God were whispering to me, ‘I hear you child.‘
And then, there are the flowers. They are not of the exotic and obviously pretty kind. They are actually more of the type you ignore because they are just too ordinary and small. They are hardly ever noticed and seem to be of no value as they just grow randomly almost anywhere in
A few weeks ago in our photo club, the photo-of-the-week assignment was using macro –this is like taking a picture of an object at a much closer view than the normal. I actually got a kick out of it ever since my friend taught me how to use the macro setting of my point-and-shoot camera. I was in ‘macro mode’ from then on. Remembering those flowers, I chose to use it as my subject. It was most convenient since that part of my day seemed to be the only free time I had to take pictures. I thought it was going to be easy.
I thought wrong.
I first started taking pictures beside the main road. But then people would stop and look at me weirdly. They seemed to have this question in mind: Why take pictures of flowers that are so ordinary and small? Even people in their cars driving by gave me that same look. So then I decided to enter the road to the subdivision –where the review was. I expected to shoot more comfortably because there were fewer people and hardly any vehicle would pass by. Again, I was wrong.
Since there were houses on both sides of the street, the flowers were often located between the street and the houses. While taking pictures, the home owners nearest to where I was would have this wary look or even cough as if to say they see me and are keeping an eye on me like I had intentions of robbing them. My hovering near their house with a camera and taking pictures of something that doesn’t seem to be of interest may have brought that about. There was even one lady whom I hadn’t notice was behind my back as I was taking a picture of small violet flowers. I was too engrossed since I had to make sure I took a clear shot and be as close to it as I possibly can. These flowers just happened to be in front of the gate of the house where the old lady lived. She had this stern look on her face as if to ask what my motive was in taking pictures near her house. I smiled and embarrassingly defended myself by explaining that I was taking pictures of the flowers. The look in her face didn’t change, so I hurriedly left.
I’d thought taking pictures of flowers that were hardly noticeable and bothered by people would actually be too easy. Apart from negative reactions from people, I was even chased by a dog and took pictures without realizing there were so many worms crawling under my feet. The weather didn’t help either. On the days I brought my camera, it would be raining or be too cloudy. On the days when I didn’t, the sun would just shine so bright as if to laugh at me –this made me give the sun and sky a that’s-not-funny look. Even the wind wasn’t of much help. I’d found this really good flower but every time I tried to take a picture the wind would come and move the flower to and fro. Since I was doing it in macro, it became more difficult. I could tell you more but you get the gist of it. I got so frustrated I asked God finally, why make it so hard for me to take pictures of something that wasn’t at all noticeable and to be honest, hardly of any value. Was there a lesson behind it?
And then I saw the pictures I took in my sister’s laptop. The flowers were beautiful when taken in macro. But it wasn’t really just because of how it was taken but that the flowers themselves had a beauty that I hadn’t even noticed until I took the time to take a closer look and see its hidden beauty through my camera. It was beauty that I didn’t realize it had all along. (Here are just some of the pictures. I apologize that I didn’t really give justice to its real beauty due to the many factors above and my seemingly unsteady hands.)
I see myself in those flowers. How the world looks at these flowers is how the world and I seem to often look at me: my faults or flaws or both. I don’t think I’m alone here in believing such at least most of the time. I put those thoughts behind me and go through the day but there are moments like this when I am reminded that I have not thought of how God sees me. Don’t get me wrong here. God uses people too but it’s so rare that when it happens it would take some time for it to sink in that by the time my heart has accepted it the moment to thank the person is gone and even then it eventually gets crowded out by another bout of criticisms and everything else I did wrong. Maybe that’s why it took these flowers to really remember that God sees me differently the way He sees these flowers…beautiful and more. Like the flowers I took, I need to take time to look closely in my heart to truly see myself the way God sees me and see the hidden beauty… and to not forget it.
