Sometimes when I close my eyes, it’s like the shutter on my camera opens and closes repeatedly with a parade of faces moving through my mind. A mother, a grandmother, a future doctor or teacher, a baby, face after face after face floods my memory. I want you to meet them and be captivated by their beauty just as I have.
I don’t know all their names, but I know their eyes. They stare at me and see right into my soul. The looks on their faces say, “What about me?”
With today’s technology and cameras on our phones, the lives of many children are documented from the moment the kids take their first breaths. But for most of the children I have encountered through LIFE, the photo I took might have been the only thing that documented their existence. With the exception of their families, most are forgotten, or worse, never even acknowledged by this world.
But there is not one that escapes the notice of our Heavenly Father. He loves each and every one more than we could ever comprehend. They are His delight.
It’s easy to feel unqualified and defeated by the enormity of the world’s problems…poverty, starvation, disease, slavery, war. But as I stare at these faces, I am reminded that my job is not to solve all the world’s problems.
I am called to love people as God places them in my path. Each person, each face, each life matters to the Father. And after years of taking their pictures, they are precious to me too.
There are people placed in your path every day. Many are suffering. And though you cannot solve all of their problems, you can take notice of them. They are not forgotten by our Father. Will you love them as He does?
Janice Meyer is LIFE’s missions photographer. Her journeys are documented in the book I Have Seen Him.
