The Importance of Selfies

If you have a presence on any sort of social media, you will probably be familiar with the debate over the last few years as to the point of selfies. I would say that yes, there has been an unhealthy obsession growing over presenting yourself a certain way, or even just plain presenting yourself too much!  But when I saw this photo, which was taken today, I was reminded that sometimes selfies are important. 

I'm a terrible photographer; not that I take bad photos...it's just that I FORGET to take photos.  When I was in kids ministry, and we were having a big event like VBS, I would ask someone to be the photographer because I knew that I would just forget to record or capture the event.  It's been months since I used my camera.  And now, with my cell phone I can take quick snapshots of life and ministry in Venezuela but of course I'm rarely in them for one of two reasons: a) if I'm alone, I feel ridiculous taking a photo of myself (short arms, FYI) and I usually can't be bothered to ask someone else to do it. ....or b) I admit I'm kind of afraid of falling into the selfie-traps I mentioned above.

But look at this glorious photo.  It was actually taken today, without the aid of a selfie stick (just Chris' arm) and that's kind of why we all look like we're different sizes.  My head is really big and I estimate it's hogging almost a quarter of the photo.  But what I love about it is that we're all smiling, even though we were finishing up a day-long meeting, the last of four, in fact.  And look!  We're all still happy to be together!!  And now I have this photo, one of just a few recent ones in which I'm actually making an appearance, and there is a memory documented here of a team I love to spend time with.

Photos can tell a great story, and I think selfies can too! So use your selfie sticks for good, not evil.  And I am going to try to remember to not use my short arms as an excuse for my lack of photos. Because what I saw in the photo above is that even one imperfect photo with a big head in the middle is sufficient.