Captured Moments

There are moments God writes so gently that if we aren’t paying attention, we miss them.

Not because they aren’t loud or joyful, but because they are holy in their ordinary beauty.

Indie’s first birthday was one of those moments.

A room filled with soft laughter. Tiny hands clutching frosting. Babies sprawled on the floor, unaware they were part of something far bigger than balloons or cake. Mothers holding daughters who would one day hold daughters of their own. And a toddler gripping a camera, already learning, without knowing it, how to notice.

Scripture reminds us, “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12).

Numbering our days isn’t about counting years. It’s about capturing moments.

Indie sitting before her cake, eyes wide, hands covered in frosting, joy written across her face. She isn’t worried about tomorrow. She isn’t aware of time passing. She is fully present.

Jesus said, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

Children don’t rush moments. They live inside them.

And in doing so, they quietly invite us back to what we’ve forgotten.

Another image shows our 1-week-old granddaughters, Lily and Avila, lying side by side on the floor, resting without concern, without comparison, without striving, just breathing, just being, while nearby, Indie sits watching them, smiling, already aware in her own quiet way that love doesn’t have to be earned.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you” (Jeremiah 1:5).

God knows us before we achieve anything.

Before we prove anything.

Before we become anything.

Avila and Lily remind us that our value has never been something we earn. It has always been something we receive.

Then there is the sacred picture of generations unfolding in real time, Mary holding her daughter Avila, and Ashley holding her daughter Lily. Two mothers. Two daughters. One quiet testimony.

Faith isn’t passed down only through words spoken from pulpits. It is passed down through arms that hold, through rooms that gather, through moments that linger long after the day has passed.

“One generation commends your works to another; they tell of your mighty acts” (Psalm 145:4).

Sometimes the testimony isn’t spoken.

Sometimes it’s simply lived.

And then there is Jonathan, our grandson, standing still just long enough to hold a camera nearly as big as his hands. He doesn’t know it yet, but he is already learning a holy discipline.

Because paying attention is sacred.

“Write these things for the generations to come” (Psalm 102:18).

That’s what captured moments are.

Not perfect images.

Not staged faith.

Just glimpses of God quietly present in the ordinary, writing grace between laughter, frosting, tiny hands, and the passing of time.

Indie will probably not remember her first birthday.

But heaven will.

And maybe that’s the point.

Because long before we remember Him, He remembers us.