For Christmas this year, I received a new camera from my precious husband.  Yea!  You know how I love taking pictures of anything and everything.  I am a bit overwhelmed with all of its capabilities at present.  Bought a 400 page book that hopefully I will read and be able to comprehend so that I can do ownership of it justice. I am far from being a “tech savvy” person to say the least.
     The downside is that I received it in the bleakest of days.  No flowers, no butterflies, no color!  Everything looks just as it is, brown and dead!  I am stalking some bluebirds that come and go in my yard, but no luck yet.  Jumpy little things they are! 
     We are having an unseasonably warm winter here in the South, so this morning I settled into a chair on the back patio to soak up some sunlight, which has been absent for most of the last week.  What a wonderful, bright day to herald in the New Year. The sky was as clear as a bell and the most wonderful shade of blue, a shade not represented in any box of Crayola crayons. When I was a young girl, I remember standing in the yard of my grandmother’s antebellum home wishing for a dress the color of the sky above. No surprise that blue is my favorite color!
     Desperate for something to present itself photo worthy, I retrieved my camera. All I could find was the starkness of the naked tree limbs against that most beautiful, blue sky.  For lack of another shot, I snapped the picture.  Then those wheels in my mind began to turn.  There was beauty there, color abounding right there in front of me.  When I looked past the brown, lifeless limbs, in the background was something beautiful to capture.
     Now, let’s apply that to our daily lives.  Surely we all have our brown, dead seasons of life when it seems there is no color to be find, no hope to be had, and we set our focus on that bleakness day in and day out. Nothing about life seems “photo worthy.” Then we camp out in that world of black and white.  However, there is the color in our world everyday, blue skies being overlooked in the form of blessings taken for granted.
     Now, let’s take that thought and ponder it a few moments.  Look at your life.  See if you can find some hidden color.  Perhaps it comes in the form of a smile from one of your children, a big sloppy kiss from your dog, or a much needed hug. Is some color coming back to your mental image? Let’s go a step further. What about the color-filled world we can have when we walk with the Lord, a world bright with the colors of His unconditional love, forgiveness, and the gift of our salvation.  Can you see it now?  Is the picture in your mind slowly being infused with color, bringing life to the drabness it held before? I do hope so.
     I wish for you a year filled with the color of God’s love and a relationship that grows stronger everyday as you walk by His side and seek His will. I wish you the rainbow of His presence no matter what life may bring your way in this new year.  Have a blessed 2012!  To God be the Glory!