Pictures in the Mist

As I dressed for work this morning, I couldn’t help but notice the pictures staring back at me.

One was of my youngest daughter and me when she was only two. She is twenty-nine now. Another was artwork made from the handprints of my granddaughter when she, too, was two years old. That artwork still proudly hangs on the wall.

There was a picture of my father-in-law when he was a young man serving in the Marines. He has been gone for many years now. And finally, there was a picture of my father and me at my oldest daughter’s wedding. He too, has since passed away.

All of them are moments captured in time.

They are memories I cherish, just as anyone cherishes the photographs we take with cameras and smartphones or the pieces of artwork we save from our children and grandchildren. We hold on to them because somehow we know that the moment itself will not stay.

And so I kept dressing because today’s clock was moving.

That is what time does.

It moves.

It passes.

I am older than I was when I went to sleep last night, and I will be a little older when I return home later tonight. Life does this to all of us.

In James 4:14 we read, “What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.”

There is so much truth in those words. Life passes quickly. James describes it as a mist that appears and then disappears.

But oh, how precious that mist is.

How precious are all those misty moments of our lives—the ones we take pictures of and, perhaps even more importantly, the ones we don’t.

A conversation with someone we love.

A simple hug.

Resting quietly in a chair in the backyard.

A good meal shared with friends.

A hearty laugh.

A grandchild stopping by for a visit.

Most of our lives are not lived in the big moments we photograph and frame. They are lived in thousands of little moments that come and go almost unnoticed. Yet those moments give our lives meaning, fulfillment, and purpose.

They are sacred gifts.

Indeed, I believe God wants our days filled with an awareness of such moments. The psalmist says, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15).

Our times.

Our days.

Our moments.

Every one of them is a gift from our Creator, filled with opportunities to experience goodness and grace.

Of course, not every moment of our lives is happy. Some photographs remind us of people who are no longer here. Some memories carry a little sadness alongside the gratitude. Some seasons are difficult, and some days we would rather forget.

Still, God’s goodness is there.

Sometimes we simply have to pause long enough to notice the pictures around us—the photographs hanging on the wall and the living pictures unfolding right in front of us.

Pictures of love.

Pictures of grace.

Pictures of people who have blessed our lives.

Pictures of ordinary moments that turned out to be anything but ordinary.

Pictures of God’s gifts in the midst—and the mist—of our lives.