Beautiful Things

 I was going through some boxes the other day from when my family moved last August, and I found some old pictures. They got me thinking about my life...It's kind of crazy to think that I'm 23. I've been so incredibly blessed, and I am so thankful for all of the amazing things that I have been able to do. I've been to some great school, done all kinds of extracurricular activities from dance and cheerleading to managing sports teams and being active in Girl Scouts. I even got to travel the world from Panama and Ecuador to China, Greece and Turkey! I'm just really grateful for everything.

 This sunflower is outside my brother's house in South Carolina. It stood nearly eight feet tall when I took this picture. There's something about flowers, especially massive ones, that just makes me happy. Don't get me wrong, I love a bouquet of flowers, but potted plants, wild flowers, and gardens just inspire joy and exude the relentless love of our creator. All of creation exists to glorify God; the flowers worship him as they stand, brilliantly colored, providing pollen for bees, doing exactly what God created them to do. When you stop trying to fix the problems of the world and you just let plants and animals work together the way they were supposed to, it just works. We try to manipulate so much to make things bigger and better, but we're making things take on roles they weren't supposed to do. We forget our own purpose when we're so focused on making other pieces of creation do something they weren't created for and we make idols of them. I wish we could all take a step back and let the earth function without us for a minute. Don't you want to see what it does on its own? Don't you want to see the real food cycle without all the crap we add to it? Don't you want to live the way we were intended, in harmony with God's beautiful creation? I do.

 I've been slowly going through a book called Doctrine by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears. The first chapter was on the Trinity. It talks about the character of God, YHWH, and the "constant, passionate, overflowing, relentlessly pursuing, extravagant, limitless, trustworthy and merciful love" He has for us. This love makes me wish our language was more specific to kinds of love. In Hebrew this kind of love is pronounced "hesed." In English, or maybe just our society, its unfathomable. We just can't understand how big and powerful this love is; kind of like trying to understand what the Trinity is in simple English. God can't be reduced to our words. He's way too big for that; but, he still knows how many hairs are on your head. My mind is blown.

 I've always loved laying on the ground, looking up at the cloudy sky to see the shapes of white puffs floating way above me. It's rare that one would think to see a shape in the sky outlined by clouds. It's kind of one of those moments you finally see the trees amid the forest, rather than the forest fore all the trees. You may not even see what I see. You may see it, but it could mean something totally different to you. Maybe angels are praying over us. Maybe its a glimpse above the clouds. I'm just thankful for imagination.