Before and After

I finally had a breakthrough in understanding why my camera was using 1600 ISO every time my back was turned.  It was an unbelievably simple correction to make and while I appreciated the "eureka" moment, it does tend to make me wonder if technology and I can ever really be friends.  Here are the before and after photos.  Of course it would have been nice if they had been of the same subject, but cats are funny that way - if they don't feel like sticking around for another pose, they don't (particularly when the two photos are taken 20 minutes apart while the photographer reads a camera book and mutters constantly while trying to figure things out).   You have to see the larger versions of these photos to appreciate the change in sharpness.  

BEFORE - Luna

AFTER - towels

Sometimes all of life feels like a "before and after" story.  Before and after I met the Lord.  Before and after I got married.  Before and after I had children.  Before and after my convictions on things changed.  The Before side of the story is always dark and smudgy, sometimes only in retrospect.  I remember what Pete told me about trying to learn Advanced Physics: "It's like trying to see through a windshield covered in mud - the windshield wipers just move the stuff around and you never get a clear view through the glass."   I didn't know that I was looking through mud before I met Jesus.  I didn't know how my life would change as a result of meeting that young man in the Public Speaking class.   Mud obscured my understanding of being a mother until I held that first baby in my arms.  I still remember the day my convictions about abortion changed; there was a great deal of mud to be removed and it all got swept away in one incredible moment when I saw photos of aborted babies.  The Holy Spirit gave me a clean windshield that day.  Sometimes clarity of vision hurts.

For now we see through a glass, darkly...true that.