Saturday night editing -

It's Saturday night.

And I do this thing on Saturday nights ... I take whatever picture catches my eye out of the many, many ... ahem. MANY folders, and I edit it however I please. It doesn't matter if I have 3,000 other pictures to edit (okay, I exaggerate ... it's more like 2,000), none of those matter on Saturday nights. Saturday nights are my creative-do-whatever-looks-amazing-to-me nights on editing pictures. I'll edit and edit, and then erase it, and do it all over again, and sometimes I'll do the same picture about 6 complete times, then I'll pitch it, and start on a different picture.

I hadn't even realized that I did it every Sat. night until tonight, and I looked back at all the "Saturday edits" in my folders, and thought - "oh. heh. look.". Moment of brilliancy, folks. These pictures sometimes get "out", with no explanation at all, other than I had edited it, and what my thoughts were on it. They show up on Facebook, and they sneak around on g-mail, and I see them when I open up my folders.

I will put on my headphones, and listen to some war soundtrack from a movie, and I'll spend an hour just tweaking and pouring whatever I feel out into that editing. Then the picture looks awful, and I'll step back, and look at it, and erase it, and edit like how HOPE looks like. What my heart looks like.

This is what my heart looked like tonight .... it's what my heart clung to.

God, all nature sings Thy glory ...

and so will I ... even when I can't understand.

"To bear the cross is to wear the crown."

"Spring is coming, Spring is coming ...

Out of these ashes, BEAUTY will rise."

Spring is coming ... and we find it in the sunshine of His face ... when we realize that all our joy lies in knowing that He hath paid it all, the term is over in the light of salvation, that the beauty we will see in Heaven will be everything He said it would be, and even better than we would believe.

Spring is here ... it's always here. Even in the winters of sorrow and pain and bitter tears, spring is in knowing: He is faithful, and His mercies and grace will always be HOPE, living there, amidst the ashes in our hearts and in our lives. HE is that sprig (in the last photo), HE is that, in us, when our flesh fails and our hearts are weak and broken.

He is our Spring in the seasons of sorrow. I cling to that truth.

Though this first taste is bitter, there will be sweetness forever .... forever with the joy of being with Jesus!

Thankfully,

~ Jean Marie

Isaiah 61