If I told someone I wanted to take a picture that has tumultuous grey clouds slipping over mountain peaks, they might nod and see my inspiration. If I added in that I also wanted clinging snow caps, evergreen forest, and a lush valley at the same time...well, they might start to question my sanity. On paper the photo starts to sound like a mess. Too many elements, not enough space.

To be honest, I couldn’t really have planned for this intense combination of things to fall together the way they did for this gorgeous shot. Isn’t that how life often is? One thing thrown in, then another. It’s not the way we would have preferred it but yet it all comes back together for something better than we could have planned ourselves.

Sometimes life is unnervingly outside of our control. First one thing and then the next unfolds until we can’t tell up from down or right from left. It seems that chaos reigns. Just about the time we feel that things could never be smoothed out again, we finally catch a break - we get that job, we pay that bill, we make amends in a strained relationship. Before long we look back at the past and see the opportunity that drew together out of what felt so unbearable.

Just like in this photo, the chaos and crazy can align to make something worth looking at, a moment to enjoy.

If I had focused in close on just one piece of this picture, trying to block out all the ‘distractions’ around the peaks; the magnificence would have been lost. You might have seen the snow, or the clouds, or bright green grass but you wouldn’t have been able to be pulled into this picture the same way you can when we let everything play together.

Our lives can be the same way. If we try to control the uncontrollable, try to block out everything that comes in unexpectedly, we can easily miss the full story of our time on earth. I look at this picture and remember that sometimes we need all of the pieces, calm and crazy, planned and unexpected, together to make something grand.