beautiful things

you make me new, you are making me new. -- gungor, beautiful things

i'm half-laughing, half-crying on the way to the Salvation Army Community Center in East Nashville on Saturday.  i certainly had no idea what i was doing, and the reality that i had no business even being there began to plant seeds of doubt in my heart on Friday night.  i considered the options: hoping for illness to render me hospital bound (true story).  calling in "sick."  or showing up, humbled and with a teachable heart.

i wish i could say option three sounded the most appealing, but ...

so, i'm armed with two trips-worth of pvc pipe.  a king-sized sheet.  christmas lights.  a coffee-filter flash diffuser.

and somehow, it all became a photo studio.  even more miraculously, somehow, i showed up-- humbled, with a teachable heart.

you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of the dust.


with eagerness, i took a moment to watch everything come together around me.  the man, helping me iron the wrinkles out of my brand new sheet backdrop.  the teenage boy that ran to find duct tape to ghetto rig hang my ghetto-sheet  back drop.  his brother and dad that helped to string the christmas lights intentional, bokeh-inspired back-lit ambience.  the other photographer, Jill, that so generously allowed me to use her large soft-box, as opposed to my puny studio spotlight.  He works all things together for the good of those that love Him, i thought to myself.  an abundance of gratefulness began to swell in my heart for this moment.

and i hadn't even fired a single shot yet.

then, the families came.  and after the first mom looked at the photo on the screen of my camera and said, "that one there looks real nice," with sincere gratitude and joy, my heart shattered into thousands of tiny shards, like a glass ornament colliding with the ground, but only better.  far, far better.

the families had nothing.  or next to it.  many of them showed up in sweatpants, hand-me down rags-to-riches, and even shirts with holes in them.  they didn't care.  the pride wasn't in their appearance (although many did come color-coordinated, so you know they tried so very hard to look their best).  the pride, and joy, was in the photo.  a moment, captured forever, with all the siblings, or multi-generational, or with auntie or nephew or cousins.  the laughter and smiles and joy was so palpable that it was indeed shared with me over the viewing of their snapshot.

the smiles in the photos weren't forced; they were thankful.  they were joyful.  they were beautiful.


you make beautiful things, you make beautiful things out of us.


out of nothing, He made something happen.  He brought beauty to life.