Photography

Color At The Edge Of A Barren World

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

Tonight’s sunset wasn’t the boldest I have ever seen.
It didn’t streak across the sky in wild ribbons of fire or paint the clouds in colors that demand you stop everything just to feel alive. But after a week swallowed by grey, a week of barren fields and frozen winds and a world that looked like it had forgotten how to breathe, this small burst of color felt like a hand reaching out of the cold.

The kind of cold we had today doesn’t lend itself to beauty.
It bites through coats and gloves and makes your eyes water the second you step outside. It turns every inhale into a sting and makes even short walks feel like a punishment. The days have been long and heavy, the kind where the sky barely changes and everything feels muted or asleep.

That kind of winter wears on you.
It settles into the quiet places.
It makes you wonder if the sun remembers how to rise for you at all.

So when it finally pushed through tonight, just a thin line of orange pressed against the horizon, just enough pink and gold to soften the clouds, I felt something loosen inside me. Not joy. Not relief. More like a reminder. A small, almost trembling insistence that even the bleakest stretches eventually break.

There is something tender about sunsets like this.
The quiet ones.
The ones that don’t announce themselves.
The ones that look like they are offering whatever little light they have left, hoping it will be enough.

It hit me harder than I expected.
Maybe because everything has felt so dim lately.
Maybe because I am tired in the way winter makes you tired, tired in the way that comes from carrying invisible things for too long.
Maybe because every day has felt like it blends into the next, all of them silver and silent and cold.

But tonight, the sky remembered color.

It was not spectacular.
It was not loud.
But it was present.

And presence alone can feel like a miracle after so many days of nothing but grey. After so many hours of wind that cuts through you and fields that look lifeless and mornings that never fully brighten.

I stayed longer than I needed to, watching the last thin glow disappear behind the line of trees. The air stung my face. The cold settled deeper. But it felt worth it.

Because even if tomorrow returns to grey, even if the frozen world closes in again, at least I had this one moment. This one quiet offering of beauty. This one reminder that winter does not get the final word.

For a brief moment, color pushed through the cold.
For a brief moment, the world softened.
For a brief moment, I remembered that I am still here too.

The Night The Sky Couldn’t Hold Itself

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

If you’re wondering what you’re looking at, these are star trails.

They form when a camera stays still long enough to notice what we usually rush past. It holds its breath, holds its place, and lets the Earth turn beneath it. We’re the ones moving, but the long exposure makes it look like the stars are the ones wandering, sweeping their light across the night like they have somewhere gentle to be.

I think that’s why I love them.
Because they prove something I keep forgetting.
That movement doesn’t always look like progress.
Sometimes it looks like staying in one place long enough for the truth to catch up to you.

What I can’t stop staring at is the reflection in the water.

That doubled sky.
That echo of light.
Like the world was so full that it overflowed and spilled itself into the stillness until even the dark had to carry something bright.

There is something almost painfully tender about that.
How the sky didn’t shrink itself or dim itself or apologize for being too much.
It simply became two skies instead of one.

And maybe that is what hit me.
The reminder that even in silence, even when my days feel stuck or small or swallowed by their own shadows, things are shifting.
Healing is shifting.
Grief is shifting.
I am shifting.
Not loudly. Not obviously. But undeniably.

The water didn’t move, but it mirrored the stars anyway.
And some days I feel like that.
Quiet, unmoving, like nothing is changing at all.
But maybe I am reflecting things I can’t see yet.
Maybe the parts of me that feel still are actually catching light I didn’t know was reaching for me.

I stayed out by the water longer than I meant to.
The grass was cold.
The night smelled like winter trying to arrive too early.
And I felt that familiar ache in my chest, the kind that comes from wanting more than I can name, from missing things I can’t explain, from holding hope and exhaustion in the same trembling hand.

But the stars kept tracing their slow arcs across the sky.
They didn’t hurry.
They didn’t need to.
They simply kept going, one thin line at a time, drawing proof of their persistence in the dark.

I think I needed to see that.

Because lately I have been feeling like I am barely moving.
Like I am suspended between worlds, South Dakota and Virginia, past and future, memory and whatever comes next.
But the camera caught movement my eyes couldn’t.
And maybe that is true for my life too.

Maybe I am changing in ways I won’t recognize until later.
Maybe this season is a long exposure.
Slow, quiet, honest.
Capturing shifts I won’t understand until I step back and see the trails.

Maybe you are in one of those seasons too.

If you are, I hope you remember this.
Stillness is not stagnation.
Quiet is not failure.
And even on the nights when you feel like you are holding your breath, the sky is still moving, and so are you.

Holy Ground

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

I served eleven years on Crossroads staff. Eleven years of early mornings, late nights, storms weathered, and prayers whispered between tasks. Eleven years of carrying water jugs, fixing leaks, sweeping cabins, and learning that sometimes ministry doesn’t look like preaching. It looks like quiet work. It looks like showing up. It looks like love disguised as labor.

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of Crossroads. Forty years of ministry, summer camp, and community. Forty years of stories written on this soil. It was also my last day of work.

This morning I stood on the porch one last time. The air was thick and cool, clouds gathering and parting like the sky couldn’t decide what it wanted to feel. I drove up to Hunt, filled my bottles for the last time, and cried because how do you not, when you’re saying goodbye to something that has shaped you down to your bones.

The leaves were turning, the wind carrying them down the mountain like tiny farewells. It felt right that I was leaving with them, part of the same rhythm of endings, of change, of release. The mountain will go on breathing without me. That truth stings, but it’s holy too.

This mountain has held so many versions of me.
The girl who wanted to belong.
The young adult who learned to lead.
The broken one who found healing in the work.
The quiet one who met God not in sermons, but in silence.

I’ve said goodbye to people, to summers, to versions of myself. But this goodbye feels different. Final, in a soft and sacred way. Like setting something down without resentment, only gratitude.

At our final staff meeting, Kenneth asked, “How do you create space to cultivate God?”

The question has stayed with me. For me, it’s about learning to notice. Not just carving out time, but softening my heart enough to see Him in the small things. In a shared meal. A kind word. A quiet walk back from dinner. It’s not loud or dramatic. Sometimes it’s just sitting with my coffee and not reaching for my phone. Letting silence stretch longer than feels comfortable. Being honest in prayer, even when all I can manage is a sigh.

And then there’s little lion, Kenneth’s two-year-old son, running across the property with that wild curiosity only toddlers have. Watching him see the world like it’s brand new has been one of the most grounding parts of this season. He’ll stop and study a leaf, or point to the sky just to say “moon.” He laughs at gravel crunching under his shoes, at the wind in his hair, at the smallest moments of wonder. He notices everything. He reminds me that awe isn’t something you grow out of. It’s something you grow back into.

Maybe that’s what this whole chapter has been about. Learning to notice. To see God not only in the big moments, but in the ordinary ones too. In the work. In the laughter. In the stillness.

As I stood there today, looking out over the valley, I thought about how much of my life is woven into this soil. How many prayers I’ve whispered here. How much love this place has carried for me and through me. Crossroads will always be my holy ground.

And as I go, I know I’m not really leaving.
The dust of this mountain is still on my shoes.
Its river still runs through my prayers.
And its stars,
its stars will always take note.

When The Seasons Turn

/ Kelly Thomas / Leave a comment

I keep thinking about the trees.

How they do not fight the seasons. How when the air shifts and the light tilts, they do not cling to what was. They turn bright burning gold and red and fire and then, when it is time, they let go.

I wish I was more like that.

Because the truth is, this season has been hard. Harder than I can say out loud most days. Full of change stacked on change until I could not tell where one ended and the next began. Everything I thought was steady cracked a little. Maybe a lot.

And in 21 days, it will be my last day at Crossroads.

I keep packing my things. Sorting piles. Deciding what goes home, what stays, what gets handed off to someone else. But it feels heavier than just boxes and belongings. It feels like I am saying goodbye to a version of myself I did not expect to lose this soon.

Because this was not the season I imagined.

I thought I would leave here full, overflowing with memories, with joy, with a sense of belonging I could carry with me. But instead, it feels like I have been scraped raw. Like this place took more out of me than I had to give.

And yet… Jesus was here.

Not in loud, obvious ways. Not in ways that fixed everything or stopped the ache. But in the smallest mercies—like how the sky kept burning with sunsets even on the worst days. How the trees whispered of endings that could still be beautiful. How there was always just enough strength to make it through one more long, ordinary day.

And maybe that is what fall teaches us.

That endings can be holy. That letting go is not failure. That there is a strange kind of grace in the falling, the emptying, the trust that winter will not last forever.

The leaves do not fight it. They do not hold on, afraid of what is next. They blaze for a moment, and then they release—quietly, simply, like they know the same God who wrote spring into the world will keep His promise again.

I wish I trusted like that.

But right now, it just feels like goodbye.

And goodbyes have never come easy for me. Because it is not just leaving a place. It is leaving pieces of myself here, the laughter that came when I least expected it. The prayers whispered on nights when the silence felt heavy. The version of me that made it through even when she did not think she could.

Fall does not ask us if we are ready before it comes. It just sweeps in, shifts everything, strips the trees bare, and somehow calls it beautiful.

Maybe that is what this is.

So I am letting the days count down. I am watching the leaves turn and scatter. I am packing what I can, carrying what I must, and leaving the rest in God’s hands.

Because if the trees can trust Him with their seasons, maybe I can too.