Early last week, I confess, I was complaining to myself.  After that beautiful sunny Sunday came several gray days that were exactly what I think of as January and wish it wouldn't be like.  I looked out the window and said to myself, "It might as well be black and white out there!"  At which point a little light-bulb went off in my head, I grabbed my camera, and switched it to black and white mode.  It made quite a difference to my perspective on things, I'm glad to say!  This could be the start of an addiction... ; )

I have a Canon Powershot SD1000.  It's a decent little camera, and I like it.  My only real complaint is that I have some trouble getting it to focus where and how I want—time to whip out the manual!—except in Macro, which is without a doubt my favorite thing about this camera.  The Digital Macro setting is unfailingly fun to work with.  Last week's photos from my almost-daily rambles are a case in point:

On Sunday a photographer friend and I made an expedition to the park.  It felt so good to be out in the woods.  It gives me a sense of having room to breathe...

I promised you an abstraction, didn't I? : )  After my friend I were driven out of the woods by the cold, we stopped by some snazzy glass buildings to catch the sunset.  Voilà:

As the recent thaw was freezing up, I saw the strange interaction of ice and plants: the one so hard, so definite, the other flexible, vital, and (at the opposite point of the year) growing.

Frozen puddles often intrigue me.  This one was on a school baseball field.

Here streams of water dripping from the roof encased box leaves in ice.

On New Year’s Day (during a thaw) I went out with a mission: to find as many different green plants as I could.  I barely left my yard,  yet look what I found:

Now the snow has returned, and I look for the color in a landscape that (though lovely) can seem monochrome at first glance.  But these green, living things were under the snow before, and they are still there, still living.  Their condition reminds me of God’s people in the world; no matter how bleak, how dark, how cold the winter of this world, the life that is in Jesus Christ causes them to be green and living.  Do you know this life?

The first day of 2011 closed with a uniquely beautiful sunset.

This can be a year of unimaginable wonder.  God is waiting to reveal himself to us if we will only trust and obey him, and his plans for us are too great for us to understand.  I hope that you will join me in seeking him and discovering what he has in store for the bright, new year.