A photographer friend of mine in Atlanta was out in a field one crisp October morning at dawn, trying to capture the sunrise and dewdrops. Betsy Garmon didn’t mind sacrificing breakfast and sleep because she knew the payoff – a gorgeous photograph – would be worth it.  Because of the intrusive power lines and the cold that caused her hands to shake, Betsy went home feeling like the effort had been wasted – that she hadn’t captured any shots good enough to use.

She offloaded the 50 or so photos she’d taken, and confirmed that none of the shots were what she’d hoped for. They were blurry, too cluttered with other “stuff,” or just not right. Nevertheless, Betsy decided to take a closer look at the one shot with “decent composition” – the one closest to her ideal.

It was during that closer, magnified look that Betsy found this:  “There, hidden in that third, unimpressive shot, was a treasure. Reflected in the face of the dewdrop was an image of the incredible sky that I had been striving so hard to capture. There, suspended on the end of a dried flower stalk in a throwaway shot, was a reminder that anything I ‘create’ is simply a reflection of God’s glory. It was a prompt to look closely at what seems to be, by my analysis, something to discard and find every bit of what God has for me.”

Well said, Betsy.  Reader, have you spent hours on projects that didn’t turn out right, research that didn’t lead to what you thought was the “right” conclusion or a relationship that went sour? If you look more closely, can you see what God may have for you in the situation – an image that comes into focus when you pause long enough to search for it, to study it? Are you willing to share something here that you learned by taking a second look at a “wasted” situation?

(You can see Betsy Garmon’s website at wildthymecreative.com.)