Your Picture

I read an article in Reader's Digest last year that has stuck with me ever since. I can't remember the exact details of the article, mind you, but I do remember a concept from it. There was a single woman who had been in despair over things she wanted/needed in her life, but just didn't know how on earth she was ever going to reach them. She said in an interview that after battling with this despair and even depression, a friend had recommended that she go through old magazines and cut out pictures that fit the life she wanted for herself. She took the advice and put together a picture journal of sorts that included pictures of everything from a family, to a beautiful house to bedspreads to -well, you get the idea- and said that after making the journal, she prayed for the things in her pictures and found that over the course of the next year, she slowly began gaining those things in real life.

If you're a little skeptical over the picture thing, I was too. I understood the merit in really nailing down in your mind what you want or are looking for in life, but cutting out pictures from a magazine?

If you think the story ends there, I thought it would too. But, like I said, that article stuck with me. A few months later, I was going through a magazine and saw an ad that had this couple sitting on a front porch side by side. They weren't super-fantastic-drop-dead-gorgeous models. They didn't have the biggest, coolest, fanciest front porch ever. But they were smiling and I could just imagine them sitting there, talking about their day with each other. They weren't havin' a beer. They were drinking iced tea. There were a couple of potted tomatoes on the porch. And I thought - "boy, that is just exactly what I want, right there." And then I thought "......no one's looking.....what if I just cut this picture out and put it away....I mean, it's such a happy picture...." and I so I cut the picture out. Well, it didn't stop there. The more I looked through that magazine, the more happy little things I found to cut out and before I knew it, I had a pile of things - most were fairly insignificant details, but they did all fit into the big picture I wanted in my life - a happy, safe home, with a husband I was close to and trusted with my simple life with God.

It's probably been a year or more since I cut those pictures out but today, while I was sitting at my desk, thinking about a young man I'm dating, a flood of pictures came to my mind. Wanna guess what those pictures were? I don't even know where I put that pile of magazine clippings and I don't think I've looked at them since I cut them out, but they are suddenly flashing through my mind and as I think about each one, I make a comparison in my head. The things I'm trying to accomplish at work match that productive, and simple but useful pot of tomoatoes in one picture... This guy I'm dating....well, he's got the traits I'm looking for in a man to share life with. He could be the guy in the picture. And I'm sitting here startled at how those pictures that I cut out years ago are suddenly helping me make sense of a lot of new changes in my life. Those pictures, one way or another, are actually acting as a goal post, or a light house (or whatever analogy you want to use) or something for me to head for.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not at all trying to say that cutting out those pictures was some sort of magic that will bring me all the things I long for in my heart. Only God can do that and there is no substitute. In fact, if you desire God, then God will align all the desires in your heart with Him. What I am trying to say is that, you know, we really ought to think seriously about what it is in life we're looking for because if we don't, then we're liable not to recognize it when it comes. My pictures weren't much, but they turned out to be something to help me recognize things I've been looking for as they (or he) comes along. It's pretty exciting, really.

So, I know, you may not be putting much stock in this whole magazine picture thing. I know. It sounds silly and you're probably not going to read this blog entry and run over to the nearest magazine and begin clipping away. I know. I was the same way. But think about the picture of the life that you want. I dare you to put it on paper in one way or another. I think you'll be surprised at the clarity it will bring you, even if that clarity doesn't come until later down the road.