Oh Where... is My Camera?

If my camera worked under water, this is what the photos it took would look like.

Yes, it is true... my camera is lost to Davy Jones' Locker. Well... assuming that Davy Jones has a locker at the bottom of Lake Geneva, IL, anyway. 

So here's what happened: I was at a women's retreat, learning about how to worship God fully. During the afternoon break, a friend and I decided to walk to the lake, taking pictures along the way. It was a beautiful fall day, and my photos were amazing. I had a great eye that day, and was catching moments of beauty all over the place. I even remember saying "This is the best photo I've taken!" after taking a shot of a canoe at the edge of the lake. The funny thing is a voice whispered in my ear "That's prideful, you shouldn't say that!" so I tried to amend it to "This is the best photo I've taken today!" Not that my friend would have cared I'm sure, but I felt like someone was telling me "Oooh, you shouldn't be so proud of what you're doing, that's bad." 

And then 5 minutes later, right as we were getting into a paddle boat for a quick ride, I lost my camera. It was  a nice pocket-sized camera, so of course it was in my pocket. In its case, in my pocket, clipped to my jeans, to be exact. And yet, just when I was stepping into the boat it popped out--the whole case--and bloop! it fell right into the water. 

And I mean it when I say bloop! It was a nice loud, satisfying sound, the kind of noise that a medium-to-large sized stone would make when you drop it into water. Or, say, a camera in its case. Oh, and I also had my spare battery and about 4 SD memory cards in there.

So my first reaction was to swear. And my second was to stare into the water and flutter my hands. You know what I mean, right, that rapid flexing of the wrist that shows how incompetent you really are but somehow we just have to do it? As if fluttering my hands at the lake would make it regurgitate my camera dry and perfect. Yeah, right.

What really happened is I called our on-site manager, Joel, who came over right away and spent 45 minutes trying to find the camera. Because here's the thing: even though it only dropped right off the pier, the bottom of the lake wasn't a nice clear pebbly bottom. Oh no, the bottom of the lake was about 5 feet of mud, plants, and more mud. So every time we swept a rake through the water trying to catch the camera, we'd have to wait 10-15 minutes for the water to clear enough to look for it.

I'm sure you're hoping that I found it. I was hoping that I'd find it, because there's a chance that my warrantee may have covered water damage, but replacing a disappeared camera? Yeah, not so sure about that one. 

The 45 minutes Joel spent trying to find my camera were amazing, and terrible. I say terrible because--well, you know why, duh. I spent pretty much the whole time crying. That camera was like my baby, it was like my left hand. I'm sure you understand, if you're a fan of photography. It may not have been a professional-grade camera, but I believe I've taken more than my fair share of beautiful photos. See my previous post about things I see on the way to the train for a few shots that I took a week before the retreat to see just how much I was in love with finding the beautiful--the extraordinary, if you will--in the ordinary.

But back to those 45 minutes. Why were they amazing, you might be wondering. They were amazing because I have never had people I didn't know rally around me so much. Not only did Joel faithfully spend a full 45 minutes trying to find the camera, but a group of people, who had been intrigued as to why two people kept staring off the pier, came over and started looking for the camera themselves. Two of them even flopped down on their bellies and stuck their faces into the water in an attempt to see better. We're talking October, cold water!

Then all of a sudden I knew it was over. I was done. I couldn't ask Joel to stay away from all the other teams that were staying at the conference center for any longer. The camera, which likely was only about 6 inches away from where we were looking the whole time, was lost. Joel drove me back to our meeting room, where the session I was supposed to lead was just wrapping up. I felt like a failure. I had lost about $537 worth of camera stuff, not to mention the pictures I'd taken that day, and I'd missed the chance to continue my leadership development by leading a personal testimony session at the retreat. 

And yet.

And yet, I felt peace. I felt comfort. I felt God saying "I know the pain you are feeling." The speaker who did our morning and afternoon sessions spoke about how everything we do should be worship to God, and that we should give Him our all, our everything. When I walked back into the meeting room, we sang "I'm giving you everything I am, and everything I have," and I thought "God, I just gave you my camera." 

I will admit, I cried when I thought that.

But then something else the speaker said came back to me. She'd talked about how when we do good deeds on earth, we build up for ourselves treasures in heaven. But she doesn't think we're going to get to heaven and sit happily on our pile of gold. No, once we see God in His full glory, we'll be so overwhelmed that we will throw down our treasures before Him, because nothing on earth or in Heaven is as amazing, as fantastic, as holy, as praise-worthy as God. And it will give us no more pleasure than to cast our crowns down before Him as an expression of how His love is all that matters, His glory unapproachable. So next to all of that, what value my camera? And what helpful part does bitterness or anger play in getting over its loss? None, to both.

I will admit, when people prayed for me that the camera would be returned to me two-fold (as in, twice as good, not twice as many) I had an internal battle. Because getting a camera twice as nice as that one would be awesome. But I can't expect it, right? So would thinking about getting a new camera ruin my chances of actually getting one? And while we're at it, did I lose my camera because I had those prideful thoughts earlier?

My goodness, it's amazing how evil that thought was. Was losing the camera somehow connected to my pride?

I don't think so at all. I think if anyone had tried to find exactly the right way for me to doubt myself, and doubt God's sovereignty, that is the way to do it. Which is precisely why I do not believe it. I do not believe that losing my camera was God's way of getting back at me, and I do not believe that it happened without his knowledge. What I do believe is that He will, and has already, work this out for good. I mean, He already helped me to not tie up my entire sense of well-being with a physical object. He helped me to accept that sometimes things happen, and we can't live in the past, wishing we could turn time back to about 5 seconds before the accident, but that we have to move on.

I'm not really sure what "moving on" will look like, but I know one thing, God spoke to me very clearly that weekend about my writing. If a picture is worth a thousand words, and I can take 300 pictures in about an hour, I've got a lot of writing to do. Maybe that's why I'm not encumbered with a camera right now. 

Well, that's 1400 words down. Stay tuned for more tomorrow.

I Found God in a Lutherin Church Today

I thought I was rushing home to watch the Olympics.

I only saw one person today at work with the ashen cross on his forehead, and it made me a little sad that my church doesn't do an Ash Wednesday service. I have to be honest with you, I'm not sure that I've ever ever ever been to one. At least not one when I ended up with ashes on my forehead. Which is probably a requisite of an Ash Wednesday service. :)

As I traversed the few blocks from the train to my apartment building, I was contemplating my spiritual life. I feel as though I haven't really developed a relationship with God like I could, and I realized that I don't want to open myself up fully to God because that means I'd have to let go of some of my control over my own life. So I prayed that God would speak to me, right then and there, about His love for me.

About three seconds later I noticed the parking sign outside the Lutherin church I live near. Hm... I thought, I betcha they've got a service.

And sure enough, they did. And it started at 7pm. The current time: 6:59.

Well, then, I had to go in, didn't I?

I hadn't stepped foot in that church in about 9 years, even though I've walked past it every single day of those years. Now don't get me wrong, I have my own church. I'm not saying that I haven't been to church, just that I haven't been to that one.

And it was an awesome experience. The service was definitely very--Lutherin, very traditional. I enjoyed doing that sing/chant thing and going forward to kneel for communion and the ashes. Although I had no idea how the whole process worked so I'm sure I marked myself as a novice when I was a bit late in noticing that everyone had formed two nice orderly lines and I was standing right in the middle of the aisle. :)

But I was touched during that service. The minister spoke of how Jesus told the people not to give outward shows of ostentatious fasting, but to hide it. But in the US, in the city of Chicago at least, it seems that most Christians swing the other way and hide their faith so deeply that no one even knows they're Christian. Which is one reason why Ash Wednesday is such a cool thing. Not only does it remind us that we are but ashes to ashes in this life (hooray for the eternal body that believers will be given in heaven--mine will have a six-pack), but it also points out not only the "us" that is instrumental in a God-Me relationship, but the "us" that is evident in the body of believers. When you walk around with a cross on your forehead, it's pretty obvious your faith.

I was also convicted tonight. We did a few prayers of repentance, and each one resonated deeply within me. I have put myself first and attempted to control my life because to some extent I didn't believe that God really has my best interests at heart. And I am sorry for that, because I know in my head that God has some great amazing plans for me.

When I went forward and received the ashes on my forehead, I got to experience the palpable reality that we are but walking the hyphen between our birth dates and our death dates, and that what matters most is Christ. So what truly am I doing with my life? And what do I need to do?

The minister did that thing at the end of the service where he stood out on the steps and "greeted" us all as we left. I felt like I should shake his hand--I rather wanted to shake his hand--to thank him for truly "ministering" to me tonight. But everyone in front of me pretty well just nodded at him and kept walking, so I did the same. But oddly enough, after I started up the sidewalk to my building, I felt a pressure on my hand, as if I had just shaken the minister's hand.

And I knew what it was I felt--or rather, Whom. I knew it was God's hand I had shaken, God's hand I held in mine. And I asked Him what He wants of me. "Get your act together," He spoke into my heart. "Get your act together because I have so much I want to do with you, only your life needs to be in order first."

So here I go, attempting to get my life in order. But at least I know always that His hand is in mine... or rather, my hand is in his.

Picture Perfect

Where do you live? A city? On a mountain? In a suburb? Do you know that you live in God's good creation? That He designed the very earth on which you walk and created the seasons which sustain your life and the very air that you breathe?

I admit, it's harder to think about it that way when you live in a city and the only true green you see is the astroturf field in front of the grade school down the block.

But it's true. God, the maker of Heaven and Earth--He created earth for us, for you, to live on, to sustain your life, and on which to live out His will.

Maybe it's hard to believe that this planet was created by a Creator, that it didn't just "happen" to be in exactly the right spot around a sun exactly the right temperature, with exactly the right size moon giving us exactly the right tilt which created the exact right seasons... no, maybe you do believe it's all chance.

Well there's not a lot I can say to that. Which is why a picture is worth a thousand words, because when we are silent, even the very rocks will cry out His name.

And no matter where we live, we can remember that God, our Father, created it just for us.

God Is Like The Internet

So I was walking home from the train station today, checking my Facebook on my BlackBerry. I know what you're saying. You're saying "Janet, you only live 4 blocks from the train! Why couldn't you wait?"

Well to be honest, I was checking my Facebook because I had to pee so badly I needed the distraction. I know, I know, overshare. But it's true.

The point, however, is that the last time I checked fb on my BB (I would do this whole thing in shorthand if I could) was last night. And yet, when I clicked on the button for "internet" and it moved a millisecond later to the web site, I had a notice that I had updated my status (which I had, before I left the office) and that I had 7 notifications.

So what was happening, apparently, is that the internet light waves or electrons or whatever they are, were constantly in touch with my BB, informing it of my fb updates, even when I wasn't willing it to happen. It's like the internet is just all around us, every day, everywhere. I mean, I remember learning about radio waves way back in high school, and yeah it's pretty much the same concept... this stuff is just transmitting all over the world and even through us. How creepy is that? But it's also pretty cool, isn't it?

And it hit me, as I was walking home and trying desperately to think of anything but my bladder, that this generation now has a new way to think about God. Really. The Bible says the Holy Spirit is in us, right? It's a kinda weird concept. But what about the internet? The BlackBerry wouldn't work if there wasn't internet all over and around me, aware of what's going on, familiar with photos I've uploaded, status updates, emails, etc. So take the next step. Think about God like that. He's in us, around us, he sees everything, he knows and catalogs everything we say and do (although if you have accepted Christ thank the Lord He doesn't hold it against us!)... I mean come on, it's like God is the servers which hold everything, Jesus is the conduit to this "everything" (like the BB) and the Holy Spirit is that energy which connects it all together.

OK, anyone who thinks this is hokey or blasphemous, raise your hand. Ok. I hear ya. But think about it--I'm not trying to say that the Internet replaces God. I'm just using imagery that this generation understands to describe in some tiny small part That which we cannot understand but ardently desire to.

Does that make sense? Please leave your thoughts.