Can we tell a book by its cover ??

Well, my plans to spend the day photographing the life of the “Valentine’s Day Massacre”, a festival put on by various motorcycle groups from all over the state, one of which groups was sponsoring and raising funds for my sister’s horse therapy business (for autistic & disabled children), Equessence, didn’t go exactly as planned unfortunately. The day before, my poor unsuspecting hubby had to have an emergency appendectomy in crisis mode only moments before it burst, so I was only able to stay a few minutes.

But I did stay long enough to come away with an old resolve made new again: “Don’t judge a book by its cover”. There were more tattoos, long beards, piercings and scruffy clothes (or barely clothed) characters than you probably ever saw in one place. But time and time again as I talked to these people, I was touched and humbled by their hearts! BIG hearts! Compassionate hearts! And hearts that LOVE their Lord Jesus more than anything. So accepting of everyone, regardless of what they looked like or how they were dressed. I tried not to think about how rare that often is in many churches that proudly grace the streets of America, full of righteous church people. But you know what? You could feel the heart of God in that place. It occurred to me that when Jesus did hang out on this earth, the people he chose to run with were the ones that may have been. . . no, on 2nd thought, WERE ostracized by the “acceptable” crowd — the religious crowd. But Jesus proudly hung out with them anyway. I came away thinking Jesus would have had a BLAST hanging out with his friends at the Valentine’s Day Massacre. These are a couple of the photos I took — and most of the folks shared their faith with me and shone with the joy from deep within them. Oh how I wish circumstances had been different and I could have documented the whole event in photos. Maybe next year 🙂