The Falsity of Photography

Today I was browsing through some photos on Facebook. Smiles, sunsets, new places, old places, familiar places. My heart started aching to experience the same feelings and emotions those friendly photos seemed to capture. I caught myself comparing my life now to how glorious it seemed to be in previous years.

But then I remembered what happened right before that perfect photo, and what happened in between the albums of June and August. I just didn't have a photo for it. Thank goodness those photos did not have sound clips, because I remember less than godly conversations going on while I pressed the capture button. Well, some of those photos were honestly "golden moments," but in reality, it was the one "golden moment" of the day, or week, or month. All those other moments just weren't accounted for.

It's interesting how we can choose to edit our lives through our pictures. It's as if we choose to water down or completely wash out those mundane days or dry spells in our life. It is like we choose to paint those ugly moments with light pastels, but dip our brush in permanent black ink to paint the glorious moments. I think we all might have a hidden motive behind our profile pictures. We'd like to be remembered a certain way, and we'd like others to think we have our life perfectly wrapped and tied with a ribbon.

I am ashamed to think I carry a perfect facade with a rotten heart underneath. I hope that when people encounter my story, it will not be reflective of my perfect Facebook albums. I pray that they will understand my humanity which is never captured in my photos.

It is good to know that one day I will be living a spotless life. That my record will be wiped clean, and Jesus will show others my photo albums and it won't be a falsity. That will be the best day.