I have over 6,000 photos on my phone. SIX THOUSAND!!!! Is that normal?? I delete unnecessary photos regularly and still I have 6,000 NECESSARY photos on my phone!!!
Everytime I open the photo button on my phone and see that number I am shocked! So today I was scrolling through those photos and taking a walk down memory lane, as I often do. I was wondering WHY I have so many pics on my phone that serve no purpose to anyone.
I take the normal family pictures, sports pictures and travel pictures like most people do, of course I want to keep those. I download phone photos to my computer regularly but refuse to delete them from my phone after. I also have hundreds and hundreds of random photos of things that I just... LIKE, things that have somehow touched me, or been meaningful to me. Things that I want to be able to look at and have at my fingertips, to help me remember or make me smile. Things that I saw and was thankful for! THAT WAS IT!! I realized that by snapping a photo, I was seeing something, recognizing it as something special (at least to me), THANKFUL for it, and thus felt the desire to record that, if only for myself. GRATITUDE IN PICTURES.
This made me think of the post I wrote back in November, Giving Thanks In the Ordinary , where I spoke about the wonderful challenge issued by Courtney Joseph at Women Living Well. The challenge was to give thanks in the small ORDINARY things in our lives. Not the huge things like food and shelter and JESUS (all of which we should be routinely giving thanks for) but the smaller, often overlooked, blessings. In my list I mentioned football and soap among others!
So I began to realize that this was my M.O. for taking so many seemingly useless pictures. They aren't useless to ME!! They are ORDINARY things that I am GRATEFUL for..they are my GRATITUDE IN PICTURES!!
I will post my GRATITUDE IN PICTURES every so often and I hope it will cause you to see through the lens (and the camera lens) of gratitude.
Here are some shots of things I was grateful for this past week.
Snapped this moment of Taylor enjoying her little brother whil she was home for spring break. Thankful that they miss each other when she is away!
This is a tiny grapevine that I planted around an old, rough grape arbor that my grandmother built with her own hands some seventy years ago. I remember, as a little girl, picking grapes with my Mammaw and helping her make jelly. This does my heart good! Thankful that I feel connect to my Mammaw through little things like this.
A blurry shot but something and someone I am very thankful for. This cuff was made for me by my friend, D'Wana Villines. It is so meaningful to me for so many reasons. I snapped this picture to send to D'Wana to let her know, again, how much it means to me. (You can see her amazing work at www.mountaingirlmelodies.com )
Our Mountain Laurels bloom for only a few days. I brought this one in to enjoy on my kitchen window sill. It makes me happy and thankful for spring time on the ranch.
"Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His loving kindness is everlasting."
Psalms 107:1 NASB