It started out as an experiment to capture on camera the effect of sugar being poured into a glass of water.
Not happy with the results, the photographer placed the glass on the kitchen counter in front of his turquoise colored water bottle.
The sunlight streaming through the bottle and into the bubbles on the inside of the glass caught his eye.
Intrigued by this, he placed a plastic container full of multi-colored plastic straws behind both the bottle and the glass.
Now in the light the glass became a constellation of color, and beyond its edge – like the outer reaches of space – a vast hole of darkness.
It is said that black holes are where stars go to die, that even light itself cannot escape from one.
As stars have a life span, so too do we.
Though never quite acceptable, the end of life is inevitable. But what is harder to accept – like a shooting star that burns brightly and then dies – are the lives of children that end far too soon.
It’s hard to fathom in all the universe any greater grief than the black hole made in the hearts of parents who have lost a child.
It is so difficult for the light of a genuine smile – perhaps with the lips but betrayed by the eyes – to once again shine.
Unlike dying stars, however, the brief life of a child does not fade away into nothingness. Rather, a child’s death painfully reminds us that every single life is irreplaceable and loved by God.
That’s the truth contained in Psalm 8:3-4 when David wrote as he pondered the wonders of the night sky:
When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them?
Because He loves them.
The views expressed in this article are the writer’s own.
