Pictures Of Love
My focus for February is Love Unlimited.
I have found the paradox,
that if you love until it hurts,
there can be no more hurt,
only more love.
Mother Teresa
I’m focusing on loving my family and friends more, and one way I want to do that is have a visual celebration of the people I love.
Here’s the space I’m going to fill:
It’s behind the desk in my library and will be a reminder to me that, just like the Tuhoy family in the movie The Blindside, I have people who ‘have my back’.
Choosing photos for my photo wall is quite a process. How do you choose out of thousands of print and digital photos?
I close my eyes and images sweep across my mind like a montage from a movie. Photos of children as babies, a wedding, beach holidays, Christmas photos of our children and nephews over 22 years, kindy, primary and high school photos. So many people over so many years.
Choosing twenty or so to fill my wall space is hard. How do I distil all the people and experiences of my life into one wall? Who are the people who have been with me through life? Who do I want to memorialize and celebrate?
Four Things I’ve Learnt From Choosing Photos
1. Choosing Makes You Remember and Honour.
The history of our lives makes me realise once again that the days are long, but the years are short. The photos capture a moment in time over the timeline of my life. Putting these photos on my wall honours these people and will be my visual reminder of them.
2. We Need To Assign Value To People:
It’s important to value the people who are with us in life. How do you put a value on each person’s contribution and part they play in your life? The love, sacrifice of a mother? The precious babies grown into adults? The friends who have been with you and known you for at least four decades of your life?
3. Cherish Every Moment
Choosing photos doesn’t just help me to remember, it makes me cherish the memories, but also want to pay attention to the now. Some of the people on the wall are no longer here and there’s no chance to go back, change or relive any of that history. I’ve been reminded to cherish each day and moment I have.
4. Be Thankful
I’m thankful to have so many people in my life who love me, and whom I have loved.
I thank God that each one has been in my life and that they stayed. I’m also thankful that the times when I could have let go and allowed relationships to go by the wayside, that somehow they’ve stayed or been repaired or reappeared in my life at just the right time.
Love is one of the best qualities to cultivate in our lives is love. The Bible puts it like this:
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
