I woke up this Easter morning imagining that I received a glimpse of hope for my worst nightmare, or my biggest problem, or the world’s brokenness. That’s what it must have been like for the disciples to find out that the tomb was empty. There was a new hope, but it wasn’t as expected. It wasn’t exactly clear yet, but there was a glimpse of beauty in the blur of that empty tomb.

We go through lives deleting blurry pictures. We delete those with our eyes closed. Or those with poor composition or those too dark or too light. We are striving for perfection.

The disciples KNEW what was going on as they got up that Sunday morning. Their worlds were rocked. Their friend and teacher was dead. Their world was crystal clear in its darkness.

Easter morning gave them beauty in the blur. It was the very thing that didn’t fit, the death of Jesus, that allowed there to be hope in his resurrection.

When I took this picture I was learning a new technique in the Colorado Rockies. Dragging the shutter. Intentionally blurring the photo. We were intentionally blurring for beauty. The clear pictures were boring. They weren’t anything special. I wasn’t growing or learning as a photographer. Dragging the shutter allowed growth. It allowed beauty, even if unconventional.

As I reflected on this photo this week, I kept imagining how blurry life must have seemed to the disciples, but God, in God’s infinite wisdom, knew the blur would be more beautiful than the clarity of life as we can understand it. The blur would allow victory over death and end result that was beautiful.

I reflect on my life. The parts that seem blurry. The parts that seem hard. I shared with a friend last week some of it and her response was that it is in those hard places that God brings growth, transformation, and healing. Beauty in the blur.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:12  For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the victory on the cross, there is beauty in the blur.

Alleluia, he is risen!