What the Camera Doesn’t Show

If this one and only snapshot I shared on Facebook is all you knew about our three days away, you would not get a clear picture of how our getaway went. This Instagram is not deceptive. I was indeed sun kissed. I was many times over husband kissed. And I really was a happy girl….in that moment.

But what the camera doesn’t show is the rain we arrived to. And the down pour we woke up to the next morning. What the camera doesn’t show is the constant cloud coverage and continual rain showers that hijacked the entire first day. What the camera doesn’t show is me crawling back into bed at 10am in a full fledge meltdown of discouragement, only to surface to redeem the rain with a visit to my favorite local coffee shop…and learn it was closed for remodeling.

What the camera doesn’t show are how the brief moments of playing hide-in-seek with the sun were shared with the love bugs, who kept landing and mating on us. So irritating {and a little inspiring}.

What the camera doesn’t show is how the brief kiss of the sun later turned hot pink on one side of my body in classic tourist fashion.

What the camera doesn’t show is how I needed this trip to look a certain way. Six months of winter and two months of emotional and physical discomfort created expectations of our getaway that I didn’t even know I had. And my tired heart was unable to respond with grace, the very gift I was needing from this trip. But here’s the thing about grace: you can only experience it, if you receive it. And pouting in bed over rain is no posture for welcome.

We anticipated nibblin’ on sponge cake, watchin’ the sun bake, and being one of those tourist covered in oil. Instead we were cooped up inside like we’d been all winter.

I never did wear those two summer dresses I told you about. Or the wedge sandals. And barely the swimsuit. That’s such a little thing, but haven’t you been in a moment where the little things seem so big?

Thankfully my mother-in-law is one of my environments of grace. She listened to my meltdown, spoke positive words, and scheduled me a pedicure! And my friend back home texted me truth which motivated a different response.

And our niece, Quinn, who we were meeting for the first time, brightened our cloudy days.

We didn’t scoot away for morning dates to the coffee shop, we didn’t stroll through the cute streets of Mt. Dora like I had hoped. We never laid pool side with no care in the world. Instead, we watched the clouds roll in, chased the sun when it peeked out, and spent much loved time with Mark’s family, who we don’t see as often as we’d like. Indeed, they were our Florida sunshine.

If days alone, without children, weren’t like gold, I might have been able to respond better. Or maybe I was looking for the sun to heal me, more than the Son. Looking back, I feel silly about my responses. But I realize now that my meltdown released pent up emotions, leaving me available for emotional connection I might not have been capable of otherwise.

Mark really was the only thing I needed for that trip. My own words, written without much thought on an instagram before we left Michigan, were a foreshadowing of truth I needed to be convinced of. Or more like a personal prophesy that I would struggle to live into.

But the truth is, I’d go anywhere with that guy. Down an isle of a church. To Guatemala to bring home a baby girl. To Uganda to live and make a home. To a foreign hospital to have a baby. To an orphanage to welcome another. To ten acres to carve out a vision. To cloudy Florida to make our own sunshine. To our future and whatever He unfolds for us.

I share all this with you to remind you that the instagrams we share don’t reflect whole realities. They are glimpses into our life, often the best moments. And that’s okay. It’s good for us to capture the moments that make us smile, even if they are surrounded by moments we are less happy about. For me, it’s like counting grace, and sometimes it’s recognizing bright spots on cloudy days. For truly, these are the moments we need to cling to sometimes. And I love how I can look back at my captured moments and remember.

I hope, however, to infuse a genuineness to the public snapshots of my life. Because it’s good for me, and good for you as the viewer. It’s not healthy for any of us to make assumptions based on what we see on our screens. There is so much more to us than our instagrams. So much more than what’s on our mind right now. So much more than the places we check into. So much more than the pictures we are {or are not} tagged in.

So I decided I’m going to start using this hash tag #whatthecameradoesntshow. Now and again on my Instagram pictures I’ll share a little bit more to the reality than what I’m framing in my lens. Will you join me so I don’t feel lonely in the messier, less photogenic parts of my life?

{I’m environmentsofgrace on Instagram — who are you?}