Snapshots

I have a collection of negatives of photos from my mother's childhood. This one is my mom, her brother and my grandmother. I look through these negatives and have had some developed and love looking at them. I love to study them and imagine what they were thinking. Imagine what their lives were like then. Since I wasn't there I can only fill in the blanks as I listen to stories and attempt to put the whole story together. There are favorite stories that are told over and over. I have favorites like why all the Christmas photos are taken on the front porch complete with the Christmas tree having been dragged onto the porch with all the gifts...no flash on the camera. Another favorite is why in the world my mother and uncle would spend hours in the cow trough braving yellow jackets and thirsty cows...just to stay cool in the brutal summer months of Texas. Even with all the family stories and photos, I still only have a part of the story.
This Christmas I'm listening intently to the stories of Christ and wonder again...what don't we know? When I read scripture and study what it could mean for my life I keep in mind that I only have a snapshot of the whole picture. I can't possibly walk around saying that I know everything God's intends while I only have a little bit of it in front me. It's natural for me to look at the negatives in my collection and try to fill in with own thoughts. But they are only guesses. It's the same with scripture...we cannot put our own words and beliefs into the story just because it sounds nice. I would even go so far as to say that there are many of us who look at those moments in time and make them into something they are not. In the photo above it looks like a nice moment of a happy mom with her two children just standing in the yard. But what about grandma's thoughts. Is she thinking about the fence that still needs to be mended or about the watermelon crop that didn't make?
My revelation today is that I must not always take scripture at face value. We must allow for possibilities that are bigger than our brains as we study scripture learn what they mean for us individually.