Symbolism: Black & White VS. Color

I don’t know if any of you have noticed the pictures that I have added to the top and the bottom of my blog. The top photo is in black and white, kind of somber and ominous, whereas the color photo at the bottom is vibrant and full of color. Both, to me, are beautiful in their own way (both were taken by me, so I might be biased) and symbolize this journey that I am currently on. Whether they follow the rules of photography, right now, is not what is important; it’s what they represent in my current life.

The black and white photograph is solemn, maybe a little dark and gloomy, but that’s the stage that I am at right now. None of the doctors that I have seen, specialists included, have been able to pinpoint exactly what’s going on with me. A couple of them have their suspicions, but nobody has outright diagnosed me as having fill-in-the-blank. In the photo the stream wanders off into the abyss, into the unknown, symbolizing the unknown that is awaiting me. I don’t know what testing might be awaiting me or what diagnosis either; but, in the end, symbolized by the bottom photograph, I know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

The color photograph is nearly identical to the black and white, though it seems to hold a more promising feeling within it. The colors are vibrant, maybe slightly over saturated, but that is how I have chosen to look at this journey. When all of this is through, whether it is by a miracle from God or by normal and/or radical treatment from a doctor (though, that too, is truly from God), there is a bright and shining life waiting for me on the other side. Right now I am Dorothy in Kansas, stuck in a black and white world of uncertainty and a feeling of not fitting in, but I know that there is a tremendously vibrant Oz waiting for me on the other side of that rainbow! I know that, in the grand scheme of things, that vibrant Oz will be Heaven and me standing before my God giving Him all of the glory; but, if coming out of the black and white and into the vibrant colors leaves me still here on earth, I know that there is something wonderful waiting for me there!

I’ve said before in other posts that if, in treating me with different cocktails or treatments that don’t work for me, but work for other people and save their lives or improve their lives, that will add a little color to my black and white photograph, getting me ever closer to that completely vibrant one on the bottom. Life, even in the bad times, shouldn’t be all about you. Naturally, you should have “me moments”, but, by and large, you need to always think about others and that’s what I’m trying to do on this journey. So far, the cocktail of pills I am on hasn’t worked as well as I think the doctors would have hoped, but maybe, next week, next month, or even tomorrow, someone else will walk into their office with the same symptoms and they will try the same cocktail and it will work for that person. If that happens, praise God!

I am keeping my eyes toward God, looking to Him and that vibrant picture that He is holding for me. I know that one day I will reach it and then, one day, I will reach the Ultimate Vibrant Picture, and be in Heaven with Him, with a new body, and with all of my loved ones that have gone on before me.