August 25, 2012

Prickles & Petals

{Some people complain that God put thorns on roses, while others praise Him for putting roses on thorns.}
Anon.

I have many thorns at the moment. They prick me right where I have the least patience, love and hope. Some dig deep and make me bleed, others simply tickle my flesh mockingly. Oh how I detest these thorns!

Perspective is what I sought when I began to read my quote journal today. I have seen this quote a hundred times, nestled on the very first page. I skimmed it intently looking for other inspirations many times. Today I read each word carefully, spaces and letters each flinging themselves painfully into my heart, convicting my conscience and doing what I love and yet hate: challenging me to do better.

These thorns, you see, are very trying in that they are thorns  cannot yank out of my life's garden. No, each day, I must brave the briars and sometimes I do not even get to the flower beds beyond. This tiring daily trek has been a test, one I have been failing. As I read this quote, I realized my ingratitude. There are but few roses on my thorns, but the few pink and yellow petaled jewels should be treasured. Would I but stop to snatch a whiff of their faint scent, the power of the scratches might fade a bit.

He always knows just what I need to hear. It is stunningly beautiful, my brokenness and His healing. I am by no means through my briars, but I have begun to listen again to His blessed whispers.

Find your roses. Let their beauty renew your weary spirit. Let Him show you what you have to be grateful for.

August 4, 2012

real

"That was the real you running through the fields of gold wide open,
standing in places no picture contains."

Learning to Love Again
Mat Kearney

How I long to stand in a place no picture contains. To exist momentarily in a place no one has captured and drug back to their world of electrifying pixels. Perhaps no such place exists.

Pixels can be astounding. But they can never encapsulate entirety. Pixels can represent a perspective, a moment, but never the whole. I love photographs. I love capturing a moment of time that will never be seen again elsewhere. But it isn't quite the same.

I see their photographs popping up under the blue bar, thumbs up ready to be selected. I see their faces, people I know. Yet the photos are such a shallow depiction of what I know to be behind their smiling eyes. Their pictures create in me a feeling of distance. I was not there. I do not know what they felt before and after the flash of light and click of shutter. It tells me nothing of their souls. Nothing like the times when they sat before me, hearts bleeding vulnerably in my hands. Tears falling from their eyes and filling my own. Even the moments when their eyes clear and joy tumbles invisibly from their lips are more real to me. Moments when the thoughts or judgments of others alter not their course and they become something rare: themselves.

The song above is one of my new favorites, one that reminds me how blessed I have been to see the real people inside my friends-the deepest darkest and brightest.