When you think of life, what kind of camera might you imagine? A video camera? As in an ongoing recording of your life that proceeds in a continuous manner? I'm not sure that is the correct way to see life.
Life happens too quickly. It's not something that you usually just glide through in such a continuous way. It's more stop and go. So then a picture taking camera might be the better option.
But then you're thinking life is the picture that is taken, however that's too focused. No, life is the flash. The part of the picture taking that captures the moment and then goes on to the next. It is when you see the picture from the last flash, but then the next flash comes and you're at a new picture. The pictures are more like memories, pauses in life that you focus on and develop more clearly. But life, life is the flash.
You might wonder why I would come to the conclusion of why life is in the flash, not the picture. I'll tell you. I am a freshman at Calvin College, ending my first semester of college. That is my picture right now. But my last picture was starting my first year of college. The time in between was my flash, my life. It moved too quickly and I didn't see any picture until now. Only the flash of the camera. The picture before that, was graduation from high school.
Summer: another flash. I don't know when the next flash will come, what my next picture might be. I only know what I can see right now. I only know the picture that I'm holding on to right now. As soon as I left that picture go, stop holding on to the moment, the next flash will come, and I'll be looking at the next picture.
A family in my church recently loss their four-month old baby girl. A member of that family is a girl that was in my high school class. Her best friend is my cousin. Both of them were very close to this little girl, and now I see their pain in what they are posting on their social media.
I can tell how crushed they are by the absence of this little baby that was supposed to be a part of their life for a long time. And just weeks ago she was a part of their lives, she was there in that picture. But then, flash, she's gone in the next. And now they're in the new picture and she's not there.
Just in that flash, and she's gone. They might have more flashes, more pictures, but that beautiful baby girl won't. Her flashes are over. She won't have any more.
I have a six-month old niece, so the death of such a young little child affected me in the way that I thought of how the death of my little niece might do to me, my sister, my parents. How a member of my own family could be gone with the next flash.
I don't mean to say with this article that you should fear these flashes or fear how fast life moves, I'm just saying you should be aware of them. And of the picture you're holding on to.
Right now, I am holding onto the picture of the end of a college semester because it is all I can focus on right now. As soon as my focus settles on something different, the flash will come, and I'll be in the next picture.
Your picture is what you hold on to. The family of the little baby girl will be holding on to the loss of her. They might not be able to see past that for a while. Her absence in their picture will be all they see.
But soon, they too will have a flash, and they'll become accustom to the empty place in their pictures. They won't forget it. Never will they be able to forget it.
They will often look back on the pictures that they do have with her, but they will be able to experience the next flash. They will find out it is okay to let the next flash come, and to let the next picture develop.
