For years, I'd been taking photographs of things that caught my eye. Landscapes. Wildlife. People. Ordinary moments that, for reasons I couldn't always explain, seemed worth preserving.

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Gradually those photographs started revealing  what I was coming to recognize as God's greatness in the everyday.

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Not images of distant biblical events. Not necessarily the grand religious imagery I'd grown up with.

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Contemporary images. Images from the world around me. Images of what I had actually seen.

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Reflecting God's Greatness.

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I returned to Tennessee with an idea.

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And then I did what a lifelong planner and problem solver does when he's seized by an idea. I got to work.

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Photographs were selected. Reflections written. Scripture considered. Cards designed and printed.

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I researched display racks and acquired four of them. I resurrected the equipment from an earlier farmers' market venture: tables, skirts, pop-up canopy, signage, and all the assorted paraphernalia required to turn an idea into a public presentation.

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I worked on it for countless hours.

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And exactly sixty days after that moment of inspiration in the hotel room, I made the first public presentation of Reflecting God's Greatness at the BlackBerry Festival in Knoxville, Tennessee.

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For a fellow who likes to plan, I had moved rather quickly. But this wasn't simply a business venture or a creative diversion. During some very dark months, the work helped keep me sane.

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I was still dealing with frightening medical uncertainty. Still wrestling with fear, anger, and the possibility of death. But I had something to create. Something to get up for.

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Something that drew upon my curiosity, my photographs, my passion for connecting with people, and my still-blooming faith in God's goodness. Somewhere in that process, my attention began shifting.

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I had been contemplating End of Life, EOL.

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Perhaps what I really needed to consider was Beginning of Life. BOL

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I wasn't finished. I was beginning.

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Eventually, the display racks and cards were packed away. They accompanied me back to South Dakota and went into storage.

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More than once, they came dangerously close to becoming part of a dump run.

 

But they stayed.