Sometimes It's Only A Whisper

We awoke this morning to a winter wonderland, and it would be impossible to miss the beauty of the day.
I have been thinking a lot about 'beauty' lately.
I've been thinking  how  discovering and cherishing beauty in our lives has everything to do with gratefulness.

When I look for the lovely, my gaze is drawn outside of myself to the creator of all; I am no longer focused on my own needs and shortcomings. For brief moments, I am made whole.

John O'Donohue, in his book, Beauty,  writes:

Yet beauty's visitation affects us and invites us into its rhythm, it calls us to feel, think and act beautifully in the world: to create and live a life that awakens the Beautiful. A life without delight is only half a life. Lest this be construed as a plea for decadence or a self-indulgence that is blind to the horrors of the world, we should remember that beauty does not restrict its visitations only to those whom fortune or circumstances favor. Indeed, it is often the whispers and glimpses of beauty which enable people to endure on desperate frontiers. Even, and perhaps especially, in the bleakest times, we can still discover and awaken beauty; these are precisely the times when we need it most.
(pg 13)

I recently finished reading the amazing biography of Corrie Ten Boom , The Hiding Place. Incidentally, it is the only book I have ever seen on Amazon to get only four and five star reviews! The life of the Ten Boom family is an incredible testimony of faith and bravery. Corrie and her family members spent several years in a Nazi concentration camp. They were guilty of hiding and aiding Jews during the Holocaust.

At one point, due to a blood- producing cough, Corrie was placed in solitary confinement. Cold, alone, and shut up in a squalid dank cell, she had little to be thankful for. But Corrie always seemed to find solace and faith in what beauty there was.

She writes:

     In only one way was this new cell an improvement over the first one. It had a window. Seven iron bars ran across it, four bars up and down. It was high in the wall, much too high to look out of, but through those twenty-eight squares I could see the sky.

          All day I kept my eyes fixed on that bit of heaven. Sometimes clouds moved across the squares, white or pink or edged with gold, and when the wind was from the west I could hear the sea. Best of all, for nearly an hour each day, gradually lengthening as the spring sun rose higher, a shaft of checkered light streamed into the dark little room. As the weather turned warmer and I grew stronger I would stand up to catch the sunshine on my face and chest, moving along the wall with the moving light, climbing at last onto the cot to stand on tiptoe in the final rays.
(p 139)

Beauty does not always shout. We must sometimes strain to hear her voice amidst the discordant banging and clatter of life. But one thing is certain: behind the faintest whisper, she is always there, echoing the voice of our loving creator.

Wonderful YOU!

You are wish...
You are promise...
You are future!

Can you say that when you feel discouraged today?

I am wish. I am promise. I am future.

Try this just for today....whenever you think a negative thought, or feel upset...repeat this verse to yourself:

"I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful  are your works, and my soul knows it very well."
(psalm 139:14)

You are defined by your identity in God, your maker. Nothing else...period!

You are wonderful!

Petals In The Wind

Apple blossoms flower the dining room table, and another one slips off to flurry down in the breeze. I think to myself that I need to take them outside and put them to rest. Their bloom has surely given way to a mess.

I'm drawn back to the words of a teacher I once worked with : "I never bring real flowers in the house- only artificial ones. The real ones just make too much of a mess." I remember being horrified (seriously) by the very thought of no real flowers in the house! I wasn't married yet, but I already had visions of the lovely flowers that would fill my home with beauty and lavish scent.

Now I have to laugh; you see, I still bring fresh flowers in, but they ARE A MESS! And I think Of dear Ms. Maclin's words every time I clean up a flower mess. So today, I'm sitting on the bench, trying to fix my vacuum, and it stinks. It smells like Roy, our lab. I can't imagine not having him inside with us, but no matter what we do, he just has a more "doggy" odor. And I'm thinking about all these messes that could be avoided?

And that's just it. There is a price for being real. Flowers that bestow scent and loveliness fade and die. Dogs smell and shed hair. Children change clothes, muddy floors, squeeze toothpaste all over the place, spill juice, and make all manner of messes ...

But imagine a world with no Lilac smell, no cuddly dogs breathing soft on the sheepskin rug, no little feet pitter patting towards you with  pink boots and bathing suit. Imagine a life of artificiality, where it's all fake. The house is clean: no flower messes, no dog hair to vacuum, no fingerprints to wipe....

But no life. No life, because life is messy. The passion and beauty of real living, real relationships, emotions that swell and fill come at a price- the price of being vulnerable to the pain, the discomfort, the mess. And so many times, because I don't want the mess, I choose the artificial. I sacrifice the living that runs deep for surface living that shields but doesn't penetrate, that' s safe but not overflowing- a lifeless void that does not infuse all who God is. Because He is real, and there is no substitute for the breath of a living God.

So many times we bring "artificial flowers" into our souls, because we don't want the mess of " real flowers." We choose to keep relationships shallow and flat, because we're afraid of the dying- the death of emotions, the death of loneliness, the death of self.

When I choose to love someone in a way that is authentic, I give pieces of myself away; those emotions that bloom and flower may some day be petals in the wind. But if my soul has become more beautiful through that loving, even if for just a short while, that beauty will never fade. Real relationships edify and sculpt a soul for eternity.

"I fly those flights of a fluid and swallowing soul, my course runs below the soundings of plummets."
~Walt Whitman

Weekend Walk

Grandma and Papa came for a visit. Mom, Sam, and I walked and walked. Unbeknownst to us, John Paul was secretly "stalking" us. As I came up the path, he tore out of the woods and charged right towards me. Oh, it was scary!! I shrieked. And he's lucky to still have a mama to make his meals for him and tuck him in bed at night! I'll give you a break today...no heavy thoughts...just lots and lots of pictures from our weekend walk. And no, unfortunately no pictures of John Paul's moment of raging lunacy!