Not long ago, I shared a story of when I went to Costa Rica with my kids in children’s church. I didn’t have much of an illustration, besides my words (of course), and a picture of my experience printed out from my computer. I lost many of the kids; one to an untied shoe, and another to a piece of thread hanging from their shirt. As the picture was passes around, the story only held their attention for as long as the picture was in their hand.

Last night, we had the opportunity to revisit the story. Some of them remembered, others did not. This time, with large!, on the big screen photos (yeah! We just got a big screen:). This brought the story to life! I had a crazy amount of responses from students like, “what were you thinking!? This tells me they really got it! They could see what I saw, and really took it in and hopefully they have learned from my silly mistake and about what an incredible God we have who is always with us, even through the storm.

Reasons like this, makes me want to pick up the camera more often! You never know when you will have the opportunity to teach and be an example to someone else through your pictures, through your life’s stories. I know we are all consumed with Facebook and therefore, our mind is just focused on taking pictures to post on Facebook, which makes you want only all the good pictures and delete the rest. I say, don’t only take the good pictures where your makeup is all pretty and hair done just right in your pretty new dress, but take the bad ones too, like when you are shirtless, getting out of the bed you just peed in when you were 7 (yeah, I have one of those)! They will give your story its full effect.

What creative ways do you capture your life in pictures?

Ashley Fordinal is the Children’s Church volunteer at Family Life Church in Sulphur Springs, TX.