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.

Cups Overflowing

"Look at all the mugs!," my friend said as she looked about my messy kitchen. It was true; mugs littered every surface. There must have been forty mugs out, and it was only 1:00. Right then and there I made a decision, quickly followed by a proclamation:

"That's it! Each person gets one mug. One! And I'm dealing with this right now!"
As I frantically searched for a box to put mugs in, Ami explained how she invested in dish sets, a color for each family member. I liked the idea, but I didn't want to go out and buy new mugs. So I assigned each child a mug from the ones we already had and packed up all of the other ones.

The first three days of our new "mug system," I became the cup Nazi.

"That's not your mug. Where is your cup?"

"Dad used it for his coffee."

"Travis, this is your mug. You have to use it! And you're not allowed to use the kids' mugs!!"

And you know what? I now have a wonderful husband who is also using an assigned mug!!
..Now, if I could just remember to use my mug!!!

All the dither about mugs and an abundance of children, the desire to serve seeming to clash with the need to simplify had me stymied.

My mind is crowded with cups and abundance- the overflow of cups in my life that I continually try to fill, the longing to do it all, feel it all, be it all, when ....

when only one cup is necessary.

I need to live my life with one mug. It's that simple. If I hold out my cup each morning and ask God to fill it, he will. He will never leave my cup empty.

Yes, surely "my cup overflows." (psalm 23:5) And yours will too, if only you allow him to fill it for you.

And when I allow him to fill my one cup, I find that the other cups are no longer needed....

"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
~Matthew 6:33

Harvest

Bowed heads yield to the burden of time. Earth, her bowels depleted, heaves in surrender to death.

The naked landscape probes the recesses of my soul. I lie on the ground, furled in the solitude of a barren womb and am stilled by the mystery.

The mystery, the amazement, the miracle. 
The miracle.
And isn't that always the miracle? That sterility swells with vitality? That I can lie in wonder on a cold ground, looking up at crumpled ashen flowers and know that they promise life?

Each one of these Sunflower seeds will grow into  a vibrant yellow flower next Summer. Every head is bulging with seeds, crammed with life.

And that is the greatest mystery. If God can take a seed from a plant and work this miracle, how much more can He do with an eternal soul? How can we behold such grandeur and not know that we are destined for greatness?

How can we go about our days, taking for granted that day after day, month after month, year after year, the earth will replenish, renew, bear fruit, put forth seed... sustain our very being...yet  forget that God is doing the same for us? Our lives are the seeds in a destitute existence...and God is  anticipating the harvest.

 And the people who will plant seeds, knowing and expecting the harvest to come, refuse to believe that God can work the same miracle in our souls. All creation proclaims who God is and what He does. All creation is the supreme manifesto.

Why thus longing, forever sighing for the far off, unattained and dim, while the beautiful, all around thee lying, offers up its low perpetual hymn?
Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching, all thy restless yearnings it would still; Leaf and flower and laden bee are preaching thine own sphere, though humble first to fill.

~Harriet Winslow Sewall

Centerpiece

A few days ago I found this Swallowtail caterpillar on a walk. I placed it in a jar with some parsley and dill, a Swallowtail larva's favorite food.The next day I looked in on my caterpillar and was disappointed to see it curled dead at the bottom of the jar.

"Oh well," I thought. "It must have been too late in the year for this little guy to make it." For some reason, though, I left the caterpillar, lifeless, at the center of the table. Imagine my surprise a few days later to see a perfectly formed chrysalis at the bottom of the jar!

I was so excited, I began shouting to the children, to anyone who could hear, that "The caterpillar isn't dead after all! It formed a chrysalis!!! " Oliver said, "Well, Mom, you must have been expecting something to happen; otherwise, why would you have left a dead caterpillar as the centerpiece of our dining room table?"

Why? Was I hoping? Do I dare to think that I had hope, that I hadn't given up on life?
Why would I leave death to look upon? How could something dry and dead inspire? But that is the mystery for the Christian: death enfolds life. Just when life seems the most bleak, just when you're ready to curl up like that caterpillar at the bottom of the jar...there is victory in the wings.

You may be ready to call it quits. You may be wondering what it's all for. You may not know the reason for even your own existence. But God's plans for you and for your life are as alive as the caterpillar, lying limp and motionless, awaiting the miracle. Sometimes life breathes fullest in a grave of quiet, lungs heaving in solitude. All seems lost, but with each deep and painful breath God  works an amazing transformation that restores life.

Will you let Him do that? Will you have faith? Can you let what seems dead in your life remain the centerpiece, knowing that He is going to work a miracle far surpassing your expectations?

"However, as it is written: No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him'--" (1Corinthians 2:9)

"I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you prosperity and not disaster, plans to bring about the future you hope for. " (Jeremiah 29:11)

Rooted

Roots dig deep and plummet depths of a dry earth. Searching..always searching. Growing and groping their way to that life-sustaining current running through the ground: water. Life. Twisting into the earth, they suck the water like giant straws, carrying the water to the very tops of the tree's branches, reaching to the farthest leaves. No leaf is left dry.

Roots dig deep and clutch earth, their tendrils curling and grasping soil. Spreading, entwining, they brace and bolster a towering tree. That tree will withstand gale force winds, setting her face against the storms, but she will not fall. The roots uphold and strengthen her being. She will still flower, she will still bear fruit. She will thrive, because she is rooted. Yes, "the root of the righteous will bear fruit." (Pr 12:12)

And what of roots and towering trees?  I ponder as I course familiar paths, stumbling over those very roots that nurture the canopy shielding me from the sun's afternoon heat.

Roots.
Rooted.

Many times when a tree dies it is because there has been damage to the roots. Because the tree is no longer sustained by its life-giving roots, it rots and dies or is the victim of a wind storm. The weak roots are ripped from the earth, and the tree colapses. Dead.

And me. Am I rooted? Are my roots growing in fertile soil, drawing the "living water?"(Jn7:38) Or am I allowing the roots of my being to go unfed, unwatered? Where do I need to dig in my roots?

"Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, having been firmly rooted and now being built up in Him and established in your faith, just as you were instructed, and overflowing with gratitude. " (Col. 2:6-7)
     

How can I expect to flourish if my roots, my being is not entrenched in the life-giver, the one who sustains? 

I must be "rooted and grounded in love," so that I "may have strength to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that (I) may be filled with the fullness of God." (Eph. 3:17-19)

I must be rooted in Christ so that I can withstand the tempests, the trials, and the temptations of life. They will come. But if my roots are secure in Him, I, like the tree, will not fall. I will flourish.

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!