........a thousand words.

Although I don't like photos of "old stuff", I do find old photographs of people and events from my past, very interesting. Recently, my cousin sent me a box containing between 40 and 50 family pictures. Some of them were fairly recent. I enjoyed looking at the pictures of my children and their cousins as they grew, right before my eyes, in vivid color, from infancy to adulthood.
Some of the photos, however, were really old. One that caught my eye was a brittle little black and white picture of the Toler family taken on the front porch of a stately white two story farmhouse. Names of those people were written (PLEASE do that, folks) on the back of the photo.
Very formally, they were captured, in that moment, forever. The mother, the two daughters (one was my grandmother, Minnie), the father and the dog. One son, Oscar, was holding a large photograph of another brother. I don't know if that boy was deceased or just not home at the time the photograph was taken. But, whatever the cause of his absence, he was, never-the-less, included in the photo. Isn't that wonderful?

Gracious and all-knowing God. Thank you for families. Help us to understand and appreciate our families. No family is perfect. You did not make us that way. Help us to be the very best that we can be.