Glimpses

Sometimes you catch them,

A child discovering something new as pure joy overcomes him,

Love shared between an elderly couple as they still hold hands whilst walking down the street,

The way the light of the sunset catches on the waves,

Smiles and laughter shared between good friends,

A family sitting down together to share a well-earned meal at the end of a long day,

The smell of rain falling on the freshly cut grass in the summer time,

A new husband making breakfast for his wife,

The touch of baby wrapping her first around your finger for the first time,

A passerby stopping and sharing lunch with a homeless man.

All these and many more are the tiny glimpses of heaven that surround us. Glimpses of sheer joy, love, servanthood, community, peace, beauty, the list goes on and on.

Glimpses of our Heavenly Father Himself.

Exercise

It’s amazing how you can forget about something until you start working at it. About a week ago I started to exercising a bit more, which really doesn’t say much. Thanks to my mother’s genes I was blessed with a naturally slender figure and so I rarely felt the need to exercise. Nonetheless I’ve decided to start working out more and boy oh boy, do I have a lot of muscles I had forgotten about. After that first day, every move makes you aware of what each muscle does as you go about your daily routine.

For a while now I’ve been feeling as though God has drifted away somehow, or maybe it’s me who’s slipped away. It seems as if I know what I believe factually, but the emotion behind it is gone. I’ve been trying so hard to regain that relationship and once again feel as though the Holy Spirit is with me. But the challenging thing is, how do you make yourself feel something again? How do you make your soul feel the presence of the Almighty again?

I’d been struggling through this for quite a while when A.W. Tozer came to my rescue once again. His book, The Pursuit of God, (which I recommend to all of you), is an excellent guide for those who long to be closer to God but cannot seem to find their way (back) to God. The fourth chapter spoke the exact words that I needed to hear.

“As we begin to focus upon God the things of the spirit will take shape before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bring an inward revelation of the Godhead. It will give acute perception enabling us to see God even as is promised to the pure in heart. A new God-consciousness will seize upon us and we shall begin to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who is our life and our all. There will be seen the constant shining of the light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world. More and more, as our faculties grow sharper and more sure, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives,”

Different people may take Tozer’s words differently, but to me it was an encouragement to seek God’s hand in my daily life. Even though it feels as if God is far off, when I take the time to look at the things that happen day by day, I can see His hand working, even in small things. Just like with my exercising: by focusing on my muscles I’m more aware of them in my daily routine. By focusing on God in my daily life I see His work more clearly too.

You may be perfectly fine with your relationship with God, not feeling the need to seek His hand throughout your day. But that’s just like not working out because your body looks like it’s fine. Truth is, there is always room for improvement. And by exercising your “inner eyes” and looking for God you can grow stronger in body and spirit.

Words.

One Year.

It can seem like a huge amount of time. Or it can seem as though it lasted no more than a blink of an eye.

Years are celebrated. Personal years: anniversaries, birthdays, etc. And public years: the New Year, the end of a school year.

It has been one year since I started this blog. I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing with it, but I hope that you are enjoying it. In any case, I've had a fun time keeping it up and sharing things with you.

Let me take a moment to apologize that my writing has not always been very frequent, or very good for that matter. But I'm sure things will continue to improve as I go along.

Anywho, I don't have much else to say, I've been lacking inspiration lately.

Thanks for sticking it out with me though. I really appreciate it. :)

Grammar//Life

I try pretty hard to have good grammar in my blog, but you may have noticed a few slip-ups here and there. Needless to say grammar is not my strong suit. One of my biggest issues is that I overuse commas. I can’t help it; I just don’t want to end my sentences. When I feel like something is still part of the same thought I figure it might as well be in the same sentence.

The song Every Teardrop is a Waterfall by Coldplay has a lyric in it that reads:

“I'd rather be a comma than a full stop”

Now aside from the fact that I use commas a lot, I feel this lyric applies to me. I’d much rather continue to grow and change and develop. A comma gives a sense of more to come, that this is not the be all and end all.

A full stop means it is what it is. That it’s the end and it’s not going to change. No more surprises, no more chances to see what might come. Period.

I guess, like most things in life, it depends on the situation. Most of the time it’s great to be open-ended: to be up for more, to be willing to wait and see what happens. But there are times when there is no space for more. Things are what they are; you cannot add to or take away from them.

I am definitely an over-thinker in some situations and have a hard time letting go. But there comes a time to stop using commas, to stop hoping that the sentence will change direction or that this isn’t all there is. Sometimes that really is all she wrote. Sometimes it’s best to end your sentence. And when you do, you can start a brand new one. One that could take you to places you’d never imagined…

His Eye is on the Sparrow

I live on the top floor of my building, which is something I’ve always appreciated. I have a great view of the mountains when the weather is clear, and when the weather isn’t clear I have a front-row-seat to the spectacular clouds, lighting and rainbows that frequent our sky.

For the past few weeks I’ve had new neighbors. The sparrows have found the cracks, of which there are quite a number, in the building and have settled in. They make quite a lot of noise in the mornings, but I honestly don’t mind, who doesn’t love waking up to the sound of birds singing? (Although, it would be nice if they slept in past 5 AM from time to time.) Once I’m up I can’t help but stare at them out my window, watching them as they swoop up and down, almost colliding with one another but changing direction at the last second. They have found a small open pipe in the building across from mine and they fly in and out, going about their day with not a care in the world.

This morning I heard that the job I had planned on for this summer had fallen through. This happens with jobs sometimes, but it’s still a little upsetting when it does happen. But as I sit here watching the sparrows I’m reminded of the old hymn His Eye is on the Sparrow. The refrain of the song goes like this:

“I sing because I’m happy

 I sing because I’m free

For His eye is on the sparrow

and I know He watches me.”

Often we’re tempted to think that if something goes wrong we’re screwed, we immediately start worrying. But the Bible tells us that God takes care of the birds of the air (Matt 6:26) and the lilies of the field (Matt 6:28), how much more so will he take care of us? He’s provided everything I need for today, and all the days before this one. Shouldn’t I trust Him by now? So I’m going to let tomorrow worry about itself (Matt 6:34) and sit here with my eyes on the sparrows, just as God’s eye is on me. 

The Moment.

That was it.

Did you feel it?

The moment where everything shifted, time slowed down, and your world would never be the same.

It’s one of the strangest things you’ll ever experience. And you know you’ll experience it more than once. In one fell swoop the world and life you knew are gone.

You’ll have to adjust.

Change.

Because the person you were won’t be able to handle this new reality. Whether the change was for better or worse, it was a change and you can’t go back.

So what do you do? In that moment, what can you do?

As you fumble trying to find something that you know. Some semblance of what used to be. A constant to help you find your footing.

It may be hard at first, finding anything that still seems the same.

Breathing.

That’s something that hasn’t changed. You still have a grasp on that. In and out. In and out.

You can still hear, and see, and think.

You can laugh, and dance, and hope, and love.

And the more time passes, the easier it becomes to find things that still fit into this new and still strange reality that is now your world.

Soon you feel comfortable again and what was once a new world is now your day-to-day life.

You have found your way. You know what’s going on again and where to go from here.

But then…

What was that? Did you feel it?