Wrapped in rain life lessons from the storm

There's something so beautiful in the sound of rain, the chorus of melody that seems to sing of washing things clean, making the world fresh and new. Electrifying the too humid air. It's like the sounds washing over my soul, how I wish it could wash away all the things that must be done and leave the things I want to do like sparkling fresh objects before me. 

Its torrential in its shifting might, the clouds an ominous dark yet somehow like a covering a blanketing for the old that is passing away and soon will part to shine on fresh perspective. 

What is it that draws me to the sight, pelting droplets that one by one are trivial but as a whole become a driving force. I'm awed and somehow feel as if I'm lifted up inside those clouds where the energie is raw and terrible. How dashed about we are here below in the world usually looking for that one drink of water thirsting for the cooling waters to help us like plants grow. Sometimes I think we forget that the rain comes only by storms and is aweful when it strikes us growing gusty and turbulent the wind rips at us like circumstances and threatens our very sanity. The thunder and lightening striking the world around we cower or we stand to brave it. The rain if it does not make us bow under the weight of its strength imparts some sort of power in that we learn to resist its force making us stronger, we long for the rain, for drought is sweltering to our lives and means stagnation yet when it comes scrubbing away all the caked sod and soil we are repelled for the pain is great. Then the clouds part, the whirling of things stop and the sun peeps on us revealing a new self a new stronger flower whose no longer ashamed to look in the face of the sun. We can only feel the warmth of life if we are cleansed and tested for that is how we grow, and testing comes like a rain storm sometimes in little showers other times like a monsoon. Yet who we are at the end is what matters, how we face the world in our new state. All this wrapps about me in the sound of the rain reminding me of the importance of the ups and downs of life in how we choose to face them and who we choose to be among them. I'm resolved to (cliché alert ) dance in the storms of life trusting all the while my loving savior, besides after the rain there are puddles and who doesn't love puddle jumping ? 

Life as we know it

It's funny how time comes and goes, usually were not really in the middle of it until we look back and realize how far we've come. Last year at this time my family and I were in search for a new home, a place to expand who we are and see what we can be. It seemed that that search would never come to an end, so its strange to be sitting in that place a house we couldn't conceive one we didn't believe existed. It's not perfect bought with the knowledge that it needed help  and a lot of TLC, somehow were on a journey of recovering the former glory of a place that nine months ago was forlorn and alone. 

In that time of cold northern winter we've made ourselves the beginning of a home, for however long its to last and after the fact its funny to see; you don't notice time passing nor are you aware of things really linking into a chain of completion. You  move from one task to the next and looking back its a wonderious mural of hard work intense moments and pulling together, a lot of elbow grease piped into a community goal that becomes a monument of beauty. 

I was going through the hallway just opposit my bedroom the other day when the thought struck me, how easily I have become accustom to seeing these walls, when another set was so fimaliliarly imprinted on my mind, it seemed impossible to forget. I wondered who walked those halls now that saw so many years of a family going through life quite unlike many others. Who watched the weak sun fight through newly sprouted trees for domination of a postage stamp yard. Was there any eyes who could watch and wonder at the sound of the rain muddying the path from the back door to the basement bulkhead doors ? Did any eyes witness the winter into spring which for so long was my only source of inspiration my only display of Gods handiwork on a daily basis. I would not rather be within those walls nor stuck in that teensy yard but the memory must possess a sense of romantic sentamentality or else I do myself a wrong.

How should I compare the new beauty that meets my eyes as each morning I rise to a yard teeming with winged life even now the chirping of birds sings me a tune that lasts from before sunrise to the setting. Park like is this little haven where my dreams of a true garden are already sprouting and unfolding with each day the sun brings her soft warmth to this patch. 

And I never cease in my wonder at the beauty god has made us to enjoy. Yet here I am and I hardly know what brought all this about. In life you never know where your choices will lead you, all a body can do is make the best choice one can and trust in faith that the Father will do the rest. And still we push foward and next year may look completely different than this moment of time, time is such a marvel isn't it ? I hate how fast it goes, but still we all ride this river. Happily moved my family and I are settling for a time in a place that I believe is where we are supposed to be. Where dear reader has the ever flowing time placed you ? I'd love to know. I keep reminding myself as I watch the days fly away into the past to cherish every moment for its a rarity that shall not come the same way twice. 

This gift of life

It's like a first breath after being dead for so long. Washing over the soul in reviving waves. The WORD Gods words oh how sustaining they can be. I don't think we realize how starved our spirits become in this taxing and trying world, we rush and worry and do everything but the important things. I often wish we could glimps the state of our spirits that lay hidden within, I fear we'd find emaciated little creature, in place of where life and fullness should be. 

Tiredness is a killer to the souls of humanity, the spirits suffer far worse though for this is something forgotten, laying inside believers like a untapped oil well. 

Riches and beauty and goodness all have been placed inside us without measure, every gift given through the Holy Spirit we let waist away. 

Putting my eyes before life for the first time in a long time, has been that reminder, oh joy that leaps from deep inside my heart as the words though familiar cause my strength to return. I hate to write it here but we've all let our daily walk fall away, lately moving stress, so many excuses can be made, yet I'm destroying my own success when I skip the one thing that will make my life limitless. This walk daily in the nourishing soil of the Word is all I need, yet becomes expendable. Why is the solution when time in thinly stretched from task to task to let go that most important ritual that's better for you than eating. 

The spirit of a man will sustain him... Prov 18:14 

Remember this and your chance of success becomes not just a chance but a hard and fast fact, as solid as the foundations of the mountains but stronger because of where the life comes. He created the mountains and this ground is unshakable our bedrock won't ever fail. This is a note to my self and to all who care to be rid of that sinking and defeating feeling that seems to wrap its arms around us in a dreamy languid sort of poison as if we had taken a sip of hemlock to quench our droughty thirst. And have been in an state of unconscious death ever since. 

For our spirits can't die, do we truly want to subject our own wellspring of life to a weighty and endless torture. Its hell for our spirits on this earth. For absence from the father and life, his glory and his love is hell, something a very special person died to keep us from.

Don't let the pressure of life keep you from his gift of life, fix your eyes upon the word even if just tiny bits. 

His words never go without effect.

 This is my challenge and my resolution, to never let my spirit go a day without feeding on life. 

Title and lyrics by hillsong united 

Snow days and new places

It started falling softly and sweetly, dusting the earth with white, and in increasing fury the white fluf became a mass of wind and and a flood of flakes fell one upon the other is successive order far too quickly to count. 

           A new back yard 

It's a new landscape that meets my eyes, a new ground of possibilities, I stop and gaze in wonder at the beauty still so new. The first snowfall of any significance in a new home, surrounded by new walls and new roads. How odd when only 2short months ago I was surrounded by the familiar haunts, the yard of so many years where I had exhausted every subject to take pictures of. Strange when you can clearly see a place more accurately than where you find yourself now. I can imagine the yard, slopping to the right covered in snow, the paths blanketed equally the one large tree in the backyard covered with a dusting of powder from the direction of the wind, the spot where half the tree fell away from the massive trunk leaving an empty space wherein the sky stretches grey and dark. Not very pretty not very special except for feet that have tread the paths afforded by this place, the paths into the woods and following the railroad tracks only taken in my memory these days. Nostalgia has a way of hitting you when you leave a place you've occupied for so long. 

These days I've found myself saying how odd or very strange to myself when I seem to feel an emotion I'm not accustomed to, an emotion that is directly corolated with a place I so longed to leave. The human heart has stores yet undiscovered. 

It's nice to be cozy in a house, especially on days like today, when the wind whips wild and moans its low breath at anything that moves. What wild beauties yet not found by my eyes I can't wait to search out, the possibilities of a new place are endless, and exciting. Today I may be cooped up beside a heater forced to rove the wild tangles of my imagination, but soon, there won't be a place in this yard I'm not well aquatinted  with. Goodbyes are long but introductions are tedious, one place gone forever a face looking toward to newness undiscovered, for now ill manage to content myself with imagining what those discoveries might be.

What might you be doing on a day of the snows dear reader ?