We have had a stormy few days leading up to Christmas this year, with some really weird warmer weather. I took this photo above yesterday with my cell phone as I was walking across the pasture to my house. I had forgotten something at my house that I needed to fix my mom’s computer, and literally as I was walking, I decided to take a few shots of sun through the clouds with my phone. I’m always amazed at the beauty that is before us all the time, but because we see it every day, day in and day out, we forget it’s there, or fail to recognize it’s beauty.
Of course this is no accident, and we are told over and over again that this display, the very display we can now capture on a phone, shows the existence of God to us all, and therefore, we are without excuse to say we have never known God to be real, to have shown his beauty to all of us.
This is what David says in Psalm 19.1-6 where he said
The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork… in them, he has set a tent for the sun… its rising is from the end of the heavens… and there is nothing hidden from its heat
and again, what Paul says in Romans 1.20
For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.
I have seen photos taken by Hubble that truly astound and boggle the mind, but sometimes we only have to go as far as to look around us, because God has displayed himself everywhere in His creation, from the Orion Nebula to our own backyard.
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Today, a quick photo of the day post with one of my favorite inflight photos from my recent flight between Amsterdam and Uganda. This is a huge thunderstorm over the Mediterranean Sea that towered at least to the 40,000 feet we were flying at this day, and you can see went quick a bit above where we were flying. Somehow these two massive thunderstorms looked like (to me) two nuclear bombs exploding, and of course we were flying into these storms.
I have another post almost ready to go with photos about water, and the well, and kids, and all that stuff so look for that next time.
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Another last minute Friday Feet but it’s still Friday for about another hour. Last Friday I was talking about how it hasn’t rained at our place in forever, and this week it rained off and on all week. My day today started out with rain and ended with rain and our pond in the photo from last week has more than quadrupled in size, what a difference a week can make. Today’s Friday Feet comes from looking towards our house at the same pond as the rain clouds moved across the property. The shot was taken with my iPhone after hours and hours of cutting grass in 100% humidity right before the heavy rain came back.
This week has been crazy busy as we (Cornerstone) continue to prepare for becoming a multi-site church and I can’t believe there are only 10 days left before our team leaves for Africa. I would like to say I’m ready to go and have everything done that needs to be done but that probably won’t even be the case come next Monday when we leave for Atlanta.
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It seems like these storms have been way to far and few between the past few years, but at least we are getting a small amount of rain. This thunderhead rolled by yesterday afternoon about 2pm and today it’s the photo of the day. Down here you see these nice little points developing in the clouds and you start to take notice. This one never picked up any rotation to it, but it made for some nice dramatic cloud shots. This image was taken just a few miles from my house when I was on my way to work, I literally stopped on the side of the road and rolled down the window to get the shot. My favorite part is how this tiny little truck way off in the lower right corner looks like it’s trying to outrun the storm like it’s the movie Twisters or something. It would be nice if we could get these every afternoon for the rest of the year.
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Last night just around midnight we finally had a thunderstorm go through our property. Feels like the first one that has come across our house this year, but it brought some nice lightning with it, for a very short time period. I took these shots right out my office window. I rendered the one image above both in black and white and color so you could see the vapor trail from the previous bolt that hit just prior to my shutter being pressed. Look on the black and white just to the left side of the image and you will see where the bolt that is no longer visible went through the clouds. I really love shooting lightning, wish the opportunity came about more often than once a year or so. You would think being in the deep south that wouldn’t be the case but we seem to be lingering in a 5 year drought. As usual the exif metadata can be found on flickr if you want to see how the shots were taken. This was really the last time I have been able to get some decent lightning at our place, back in the summer of 2008, see How to Successfully and Safely Photograph Lightning and Humidity, Storms, and Lightning in Alabama are Back for my last two examples.
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They say you should stop and smell the roses. It has been so cold, wet, dark, and raining for the last few days that you couldn’t get outside and do anything, let alone smell a rose. It finally cleared up enough this afternoon to jump outside for a quick break, and today that makes this shot the photo of the day. I took the shot of the roses with my iPhone today, and in my ongoing battle to make the iPhone a viable photographic alternative to a big DSLR I am testing out some new apps (blog post review to come some time).
There is so much going on this week and my mind and heart are in basically three different places so this was a nice walk around the house break. My friend and marathon prayer partner lost his sister unexpectedly this week and today he is in Tennessee with his wife at the funeral. He has usually been on the other side, praying for myself and Deborah as she continues with her tests at UAB, but this week it changed.
This morning, going through my normal continuous reading of the bible, I just happen to be reading Paul’s words from 1 Corinthians 12:26 that says “if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together”, and this is truly the case. As we get ready for the next round of tests at UAB on Friday (depending on whether UAB and BCBS can figure out how to talk to each other) I know he will be back on the other side praying for me once again, and that is such a comfort to me.
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The photo of the day today was from a shot I took on my iPhone yesterday while I was walking in my backyard. Walking later in the day when the sun is going down is often where I can meet God and just stare at His awe.
It’s often hard to capture or describe the beauty of the sun radiating through the clouds but this was about as good as my phone could do yesterday.
