Saturday, December 6, 2014

Love, God


It's been awhile.  Sorry y'all.
So about 10 years ago, maybe not that long,  I met a sweet friend who shared with me and everyone this idea of Valentines From God, in her book.  I was a photography major in college, so it sparked my interest.  Her photos were about finding hearts in nature, or places unexpected and seeing them as love messages from God. Then I started seeing them everywhere.  I started photographing them also finding new ways with lighting, filters and text to capture the hearts.  I was finding them in streets, plants, clouds, dirt, rocks, cactus, water, leaves and then some unexpected places like peoples hair, a bandaid, freckles and even deer poop.  So I began to focus on the message.

Doing a collection of photographs about a particular subject that won't let go of you is like an impostor, I had no choice, they wouldn't let go of my heart.  I was compelled to photograph them.  It was like I couldn't pass one up or leave it there unnoticed when in fact I had noticed it.  So thus the quest began.  When I submitted to its yearning to notice and find, then it was all I saw.

HEARTS were popping up EVERYWHERE.  So I thought more about their message, my message, a message, The Message and what God was opening my eyes to.  His Love surrounds us, daily. That's what I felt like God was speaking to me.  Especially through cancer treatments.  He was showing me, assuring me, blessing me, walking with me every step of the way by showing me these hearts everywhere.  And I mean everywhere.  And they always seem to cross my path at a pivotal time when I needed to see them.  Like a cheering squad almost.  So I kept photographing them.  I created a little booklet through Apple and showed it to my friend who wrote the original VFG, weeping with excitement.  She got big tears in her eyes and Praised God for showing His Love to me.  I knew I could not name my book the same, so I began to pray about the title or name for the collection.  Knowing the value now with branding, social media etc I presented it in prayer.  I began to ponder the thought of what if I were to get a love message from God.  It made me think how does someone sign a love message to another?  They usually sign it Love, and then their name..........and since I was so convicted and sure that these hearts definitely were from God with divine placement and timing the right thing to do was to name them Love, God Photos.
Again like a love message from God saying,
"Here you go Barbara, I love you! 
Love, God."


I actually can see two maybe even three.  Can you?
Today my neighbor captured two photographs of me and my grand-daughter walking around the limestone rock circle at our home.  I joined her on her walk.  It was a nice day as you can see and good to be outside.  So,  I followed her around, and around, then she followed me or I would circle around and meet her and we would laugh.  She jumped off the big rocks and climbed up onto them as if it was nothing.  It was everything God designed and had given me in my heart, soul, and mind of what I thought it would be like to have grandchildren playing in my backyard.  As I walked my yard as part of my treatment therapy, picking up mostly rocks and sticks, lifting them over my head when I could, doing gardening and light yard chores, all the while I was visualizing each space.  In those basic acts of necessity, play and daily living God gave me pictures in my head of what the backyard was or could look like with what we already had on the property.  An old tree house is in the back left corner and a shed sits in the back right.  So, I saw this circle around this group of trees that was sort of separated from the batch of trees we have closer to the house.  Living in Colorado for ten years I knew how much fun our girls had and other kids who came to visit climbing on big rocks.
I wanted my grandkids to experience the same.
My sweet neighbor came over to the fence and as we were talking she took our picture as we were walking round and round.  The lighting is amazing and revealed to me what I call an accidental Love, God.  You can see it in the shadows of the trees, on the ground and upside-down.  The beams of light all around us are pretty spectacular too.  

Do you see what I see? 

She later sent me the photos and thanked me for letting her son come over to play with my grand daughter.
Here is the text conversation we had about it.........







Like I said, I feel blessed.  Flat blessed.  His Love is all encompassing, all knowing and all forgiving. He opened the eyes of my heart and continues to do so everyday with these hearts.  Now I have a gazillion photographs and have made some other booklets.  I made some small books by SocialPS or Social Print Studio and I love them.


I've thought about chronicling them by year.  The little magnetic books are great little gifts just as a reminder to look up, thank God, and be blessed.  
So wandering my backyard I began to think about the children who might come and play there.  Thanks to my neighbor who helped this vision come to fruition. It really was a vision from the Lord.  There's not other word for it.  I knew God had something special in the photos I was taking, so I started a Facebook page called Love, God Photos,  so I could post some of the pictures with captions and whatnot, get some feedback and let others began seeing them and sending them or tagging the photos.  I don't know how long this journey of photographing them will go on, but I hope forever.  I love finding them. I love that they find me.   I would love to see them on canvas, big or published more.  More so that others can start seeing His Love all around them.  I am so grateful for these photos.  I will cherish them always and hope you will too.
So there you have it.  Love, God beginnings, current status and future plans.