Sunday 29 January 2012

Just because you could

Hi God.

I made us late for Katy's swimming lesson this morning by stopping to take photographs of the frost on top of the car. She was lucky that I did it with my phone camera rather than going back in the house for the proper camera, actually, as the sun was about to melt it and I thought it was so beautiful that I'd better steal the moment straight away as it would be just drops of water by the time we got back. It was very beautiful. 

How come ice makes such wonderful patterns?  You did that just because you could, didn't you? Just for fun. You thought,

'When it gets really cold and all those people are walking around in multiple jumpers and having to scrape their windscreens, I'll give them a little treat if only they look closely. It'll be something amazing. It won't last long; when the sun comes it'll melt and if they've missed it, they've missed it, but if they catch it, they'll be transfixed. And then they'll look at the sparkles and the patterns and the clear, cold sky and the sunshine and they'll give me glory.'

Was that it?

The glory is yours. There are so many amazing things to see around me when I actually open my eyes to see. It's funny that there are times when I feel very close to you and I see you all around and little things that happen teach me lessons about my life with you and songs remind me of you and things go round in my mind that focus me on you. My life seems filled with you and I'm absorbed in you. Those are the times when I have lots of ideas and I'm reading lots and I'm engaging at church and talking about you with other people who help me. I like those times.

Other times I find that I feel a million miles away from you and then I struggle to see you anywhere. Flowers are just flowers and I don't think to go outside to catch the sunset. I just see tiresome ice that needs scraping from my windscreen before I can go anywhere and my head isn't full of you it's full of the mundane and the depressing and all the things that worry me.

So how does it happen? How come some days it all comes together and other days it falls apart? I'm quite sure that it's me; my frame of mind or whether I've spent any time with you or something like that. The sort of thing I fill my mind with must definitely have an impact on my outlook on life. But then sometimes out of the blue comes a day full of blessings when you just seem to have reached down and touched the everyday and made them outstandingly beautiful.


Next this afternoon we went for a walk (yes, alright, and a coffee) in the beautiful Derbyshire countryside and there was a sprinkling of snow on the tops - enough for Elizabeth to comment that it looked as if you had emptied icing sugar all over everything. We crunched through snow, broke the ice on puddles and squelched through mud. We saw a wonderful low golden sun shining off a lake. A tiny yellow flower was peeping through the snow - incongruous in the frozen ground. How did that little flower come to be there? Did it survive from last year or is it early for this year? Either way it seemed like a little miracle to me. On the way home the sky became orangier and orangier and we stopped to watch the sun go down. It was spectacular; a marvellously extravagant sunset.


We had a beautiful afternoon out and about  - it was a lovely time; an afternoon full of treats. It's a beautiful part of the world that we live in. We are blessed indeed. And tomorrow, if things don't go so well, I am still here in the same part of the world, I am still surrounded by beauty, and I am still blessed beyond measure. I need to remember that.

Thankyou, Father God. For all the blessings that we take for granted as well as the ones we see. For planting perception in us that enables us to see you in the beauty around us. For making it all so intricate and exciting and beautiful and awe-inspiring just because you could.


Help me to show my girls the wonder of you. Help me to keep my eyes open to notice and not be so wrapped up in myself to see.

Help me to give you the glory that is yours because you are the Creator God who brought all this about. You took care with each petal, each refracting sunbeam, each snowflake, each ephemeral little swirl of frost on top of the car. You are Beauty itself and everything that you make just has to be beautiful.

Does that mean me, too, then?  Hmm. That's a thought for another day.

Well, for now, the children are in bed, I have a glass of wine, I'm waiting for the delivery of a Chicken Tikka Biryani and maybe a couple of poppadoms and my day will be complete.

Life is good.

Thankyou.











2 comments:

  1. Brilliantly beautiful post my new friend. I'm so glad He had you find me so I could find you. Yes I believe you're right. We do think alike. I look forward to reading more. By the way. Your girls are gorgeous. Look at those dimples!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hello! And thankyou.
      Feeling all smiley now. :-)
      Hx

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