I must confess I have a fetish for glass bottles and glass jars and glass vases...and almost everything else glass. Like windows. I enjoy seeing, and I love light. I read once that natural light is the photographer's worst enemy, but whoever wrote that doesn't know the value of light. For without light, photography isn't even possible. There is no beauty but the natural beauty; no love but love from God. You may think my view narrow, but I believe it to be true. Man is inherently evil; just look around you and you can see millions of examples walking to and fro up and down streets around you. Just look at your own heart, or if you prefer, you can look at mine; we all have seeds of evil inside of us, waiting to grow and sprout into noxious weeds that spread and take over every area of our lives. They wrap their tendrils around every beautiful flower and choke it out, until all that your heart and life is is a overgrown garden of weeds threatening to spill out and contaminate all you come in contact with. But everyone you come in contact with, or even don't, has the same problem as you do. Even I do! We all do. Even if we convince ourselves that we're perfect. We're all little children inside, pretending to be big and strong enough to pull the weeds, but they just won't give. And when we realize they won't, we strut around like roosters with a lot of poofy feathers saying we like the weeds in our garden. But do you really? Are you happy, are you satisfied? Or are you really empty and bitter inside, always wishing for something else? I know not your heart, but I hazard to guess it's a lot like all the other millions of hurting and bitterness-filled hearts walking around. You are definitely not alone in your pain, or your problems.
I have good news for you though. There is, my empty-hearted friends, a Great Gardener who is perfectly capable, and willing, to pull every weed in your garden and instead plant beautiful flowers, all the colors of the rainbow. He plants seeds of happiness and joy; blessings and abundance. But only, only, if you invite Him in. Now, there will still be days where those noxious weeds sprout up again, and some might even begin to take over the flowers again, but as long as the Gardener is there, they won't last the night, but instead wither and die, forgotten. Some days rain will come and pummel the beautiful flowers until they lay down against the muddy earth, stained and beaten, but no storm lasts forever; the sun will certainly come out again. Some days there will be harsh winters, where snow covers every semblance of color, and all you see is whiteness, and all you feel is coldness. But have no fear, after every winter comes a spring, and after every spring comes a summer, and the flowers will bloom again. If all the days were spring, or all the days summer, you wouldn't appreciate the beauty of the flowers or the warmth of the sun on your skin. In life some days must be filled with pain so that you can feel the ecstasy of joy.
