A few years ago, I was preaching a Sunday morning service of a revival emphasis in a church in south central Kentucky. I suggested that mothers-in-law sometimes took emotional photographs of their sons-in-law at poor moments. Sometimes, a daughter will take a photo of her husband’s bad side, and share it with her mother. The mother-in-law will then take this collection of photos of the bad side of her son-in-law and place them in an emotional photo album. Thus, bitterness and resentment are preserved in memorium, and relational defilement is shared between a mother and a daughter, further undermining the foundation of the daughter’s marriage to her husband.
After the service, a lady approached me. She was obviously moved by the truth of the message. She said, "I have to go home and burn some photo albums!"
I knew immediately what she meant. Her daughter’s stories, coupled with her inherent suspicion of the man who had taken her daughter to be his wife, created a sense of mistrust. She found herself gravitating toward the stories that cast the man in a bad light. When God showed His light on the unfairness of bitterness that was stored in her heart, she knew that she must deal with it in prayer. She also knew that her memory bank, the photo album filled with pictures of the man’s bad side, had to be destroyed.
I have learned that I have to qualify snapshots of relationships with colleagues and friends when I relate a story to my wife. If not, I can defile my wife’s thoughts of others with unattractive images of their worst moments. I often tell my wife, "I have just handed you a photo of life with this person; however, remember, life is a motion picture." The static nature of a photo leaves out important details that often change its interpretation.
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