Especially Fond of Them

So it's three o'clock in the morning and I can't sleep. Partially because my husband is gone and I have a child (who likes to move) sleeping with me, and partly because I am grieving. Yesterday, as I was celebrating the accomplishment of having "finished" the China pictures, it dawned on me that I hadn't seen a few. As I went through the photos again, I realized there was a huge chunk (almost 300 photos) that were missing! I frantically searched for them...to no avail.

I am sure it is some fault of mine that they are gone, but I have no idea how. They included all my pictures of the Old City of Chongqing...pictures that hang in my minds eye, but the beauty of which are lost to the rest of the world. All the richness, colors, faces, and stories will be mine to treasure, but not to share. I am sad...I was especially fond of these images.

Some may think that out of a total of 3000 photos taken in China, what is 300? Really if you think about it, I still have A LOT of photos. But, as I said before, I was especially fond of these and so numbers and percentages do not rule the day, my affection does.

As I lay in bed thinking about all this, the Spirit began to stir my heart. On the heels of such devastating tradgedies in Myanmar and China, it is easy to "dehumanize" the events and fall into lumping them into the category of "natural disaster" that happened "over there". I can fall into looking at percentages or statistics of populations lost. Sure, this number or that number of people are gone, but in an area with with over 2 billion people....well...there's still a lot of people.

However, each life - each individual life - was a picture, a piece of art, an image-bearer of his or her Creator. Their beauty and story hang in the heart of the God who Sees, but are lost to all the rest of us. How sad. Great works of art that are removed from this earth forever and will be forgotten or never seen by the majority of the planet.

But God does not forget. He remembers...because He was especially fond of them!

(By the way, I'm not equating the value of a human life with a picture. I think the Spirit just helped me understand the fondness that a creator has for each creation. And the deep sadness that brings when those creations are lost. And for any of those who have read The Shack, I think I was allowed understanding to the phrase "especially fond of".)