Unending Grace

“Now this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light. Why? Because their actions were wicked. 

For everyone who does evil things hates the light and avoids it, so that his actions won’t be exposed. But everyone who does what is true comes to the light, so that all may see that his actions are accomplished through God.”

“Now this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light. Why? Because their actions were wicked.
For everyone who does evil things hates the light and avoids it, so that his actions won’t be exposed.
But everyone who does what is true comes to the light, so that all may see that his actions are accomplished through God.”

John 3:19-21

My family accompanied me to Las Vegas, Nevada, where I was attending a wedding photography conference. Our sightseeing afternoon became a shopping excursion because our youngest daughter’s shoe broke as we strolled the Las Vegas strip. This turn of events caused a diversion in our plans, placing us on a new path—the path appointed to catch the fifth and sixth God Pictures.

After locating a shoe store, we realized we were on the opposite side of the road and needed to cross a bridge connecting both sides. I found myself gazing at two reflections next to each other on the plexiglass that bordered the pathway of the bridge we crossed. The intense attraction to these reflections led me to photograph two frames.

The photograph is named Unending Grace, and it is numbered Hey ה, the Hebrew letter, and number meaning: “to be broken,”; “to take seed,”: “behold”—”revelation.”

The Venetian tower is the first photograph of the two reflections—a replica of St. Mark’s bell tower in Venice. There is a radiant eye encompassed by clouds in the top left corner. The eye intently focused on the tower’s point, where a gold image of the messenger angel Gabriel resides. A ray of light streams down toward the tower’s reflection, illuminating the darkness.

In 1 John 1:5-7, it says, God is pure light. You will never find even a trace of darkness in him. If we claim that we share life with him but keep walking in the realm of darkness, we’re fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we keep living in the pure light that surrounds him, we share unbroken fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, continually cleanses us from all sin.

The tower’s reflection lines up with a crane captured through the glass, resembling a plumb line. The Lord gives Amos a vision of a wall built using a plumb line in Amos 7:7. He then takes a plumb line to measure if the wall is straight. A wall that is not straight will ultimately fall. The word of God is our plumb line.

The word is full of living power. It is sharper than the sharpest knife, cutting deep into our innermost thoughts and desires. It exposes us for what we really are. Nothing in all creation can hide from Him. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes. This is the God to whom we must explain all that we have done (Hebrews 4:12-13).

God’s light exposes our darkness through love to free us, not to condemn us. The fear of exposure makes our walls vulnerable to the darkness—whose hunt is relentless, eventually leading to a crooked wall that will fall.

The tower’s reflection spells bluephoria (blue- for the blue man group) backward. As humans, we desire to reach a level of pleasure referred to as euphoria. Revelation 4:11 says, “For you created everything, and it is for your pleasure that they exist and were created.” Humans exist to bring pleasure to God, and we are fashioned after God; therefore, we, too, desire pleasure.

There is great disappointment in our inability to reach this state that we crave and perhaps reach temporarily. Pleasure is God’s idea. We will only find satisfaction in his holy euphoria. Everything else will fail us. The world’s pleasure is backward.

This photograph reflects what is behind me and unveils what is before me. It allows me to look back and open the door of pain to let the healing enter and provide closure. I am charged to line up with the word of God and hear the gospel message that the angel Gabriel, who stands in God’s presence, delivers and speak to the dead man (woman) to live again! Wake up from your sleep, Climb out of your coffins; Christ will show you the light (Ephesians 5:14).

God alone knows our pain. He knows what we have gone through and the wounds that led to our darkness. He sees us as we are. He alone will lead us to a breakthrough, forgiveness for ourselves, and restore all that has been stolen.

Most of us will walk through great darkness or sadness at some point. This pain can imprint a deep wound in us. It hurts us, which can lead to behaviors we don’t understand. To find healing—we surrender, revisit the wound, walk through the pain, and allow God to heal us in ways no one else can—it is only then that we are ready to move on to our futures. The darkness is part of the journey to prepare us for the future that is ours. The trials we stumble into—alter our days, reroute our direction, and land us on the path to catch our future.

The road to healing requires that we mourn the loss— allow ourselves to be sad. Accept the loss—it had a season, a time. Evaluate ourselves— What did we learn? How can we grow from this? Realign ourselves with God— His Word, and make any changes needed to live aligned.

Finally, the time comes for our healing and to move on. It’s time for us to “Speak to these bones- Tell them, ‘Dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD! This is what the Lord GOD says to you: I will cause breath to come into you, and you will come to life! I will put sinew and muscles on you, and I will cover you with skin. Then I will put breath in you, and you will come back to life! Then you will know that I am the LORD.'” It’s resurrection day—Time for the dead man to live again!

© Ana Gill