At the Cross

My church asked for photos of crosses, so I took on the mission, stopping by churches and any other venues where crosses might be, including a graveyard. I find cemeteries to be so beautiful and peaceful.

I took my youngest along to look for crosses on this particular day; the others are not quite as patient as she is with my photo obsession. The cemetery we went to had the perfect cross, and I asked Audrey to stand underneath it and look up at it.

With no disrespect to those whose names are on those tombstones, I wanted this photo to focus on Audrey at the cross. Plus, as a church photo, I thought it would be best without the graves. It took awhile - a lot of cloning and touch-ups, but I finally got the photo to look like I wanted it to.



The sky in the original photo was rather gray, so I inserted a bluer sky from another photo I have.





I then decided to go black and white. I had to blur and smudge the sky a bit with this one, though, because the fun cloud texture from the blue sky looked a little odd in the black and white.








This photo is a special treasure to me because of the conversation with my sweet little Audrey that followed our little photo shoot at the cross.

"It's pretty here," she said thoughtfully.

"It is, isn't it?" I responded. "It's so quiet and peaceful. And so beautiful."

"It seems like a Christian graveyard," she continued.

"You're right! There are lots of Christian symbols, aren't there? Like crosses and statues of Jesus and of angels."

"Was everyone who died here a Christian?" she asked.

Although it was sobering for me to explain to her that, unfortunately, not all of these people likely asked Jesus into their hearts before they died, I had a sweet moment with her where I could tell her about Jesus' love for her. This was probably the first opportunity I have had to explain salvation to her in a situation where I think she really understood.

I assured her that her mommy and daddy are always here to answer any questions she has. My hope and prayer is that she will soon make a decision to come back to the cross.