I haven't shared recently things I have found around the world wide web because I have been hiding from it. Escaping from the darkness that can be so overwhelming, so disheartening - excruciatingly painful. It isn't that I've been totally void of an online community but I've been selective in the offerings. I've joined a wellness tribe on Facebook through Ali Edwards, an amazing creative who inspires my creativity - and telling stories, where we are looking after each other being the best selves we can be and who also has a Story community I am a part of where only lifting others up and valuing each others work is the standard, the norm and shaming is never found and political ranting division is unacceptable.
I also frequent those blogs and sights who stay away from hate and dissension and division [especially those who divide in the name of Christ]. Rather, I seek out LIGHT.
Driving home from church or, maybe, lunch with the family, Francesca Battistelli's Beautiful, Beautiful came on the radio. Tears welled. I needed beautiful. I needed Beautiful. Jesus is beautiful and Jesus is Beautiful. I escaped to Beautiful for just a short while and realizing that is my favorite place to be. Walking after Beautiful. Running to Beautiful. But, in fact it is Mercy, Beautiful breaking through the dark and burning daylight even in the night after me.
Beautiful, Beautiful by Francesca Battistelli
Don't know how it is You looked at me
And saw the person that I could be
Awakening my heart
Breaking through the dark
Suddenly Your grace
Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so
Beautiful, beautiful
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so
Beautiful, beautiful
Now there's a joy inside I can't contain
But even perfect days can end in rain
And though it's pouring down
I see You through the clouds
Shining on my face
Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so
Beautiful, beautiful
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so
Beautiful, beautiful
I have come undone
But I have just begun
Changing by Your grace
Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so
Beautiful, beautiful
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so beautiful
Like sunlight burning at midnight
Making my life something so
Beautiful, beautiful
Mercy reaching to save me
All that I need
You are so
Beautiful, beautiful
Beautiful, beautiful
And, when Mercy reached out I was uplifted, saved from the darkness that so wanted to surround me.
So, today I am only sharing beautiful, beautiful because...'the power of the good has taken refuge in the beautiful' - Plato
Ann Voskamp's When You Just Quietly and Deeply Need to Heal is beyond beautiful. And, the Thorncrown Chapel has officially been added to my bucket list. "What if the Beauty of the church was that it had no walls, only open doors, only open windows, only the openness of being fully seen — and fully welcomed? What if church was a place where our most broken places could be seen — and we were loved most in those broken places? What if the beauty of the Gospel captured the world’s attention more than the bustedness of this world? What if we moved the world with the beauty of the sacred, more than we shook our fists at the secular and the sinners? What if the church resisted shaming the world into moral conformity, but embodied the irresistible beauty of cruciformity?" - Ann Voskamp
There it is, written in Thorncrown Chapel's welcome: “At the center of every light in the chapel is a cross. These crosses whisper to you that because of Christ, there is no place God will not go and no one He will not bless. You are never beyond God’s love, and you are never alone. God is present even in the midst of your greatest need, your greatest weakness, and your greatest failures. Grace would have it no other way.”
Kristen Welch of the We Are That Family blog and author penned this blog post The Poorest People in the World and I cried. And, I was convicted over again. She quotes words of gratitude from some of the poorest people in the world who are in fact some of the richest people in the world because they are grateful to the One who they are grateful to. "I’ve realized the poorest people in the world aren’t people who have nothing. The poorest people in the world are those who aren’t grateful for what they have" - Kristen Welch
Reading is fundamental to a family's happiness. That's the title of this article CNN (which I do not read or watch but when someone I trust sends me there and says,"read this!" I listened. While I did a disservice to my girls and rarely read a-loud to them, I captured the truth of reading a-loud to my boys from a very young age as a ritual and re-visited the beauty of reading a-loud when I began homeschooling them in their 7th grade. What I found? It was our most favorite part of homeschooling. We visited so many worlds we would otherwise have never visited if they were left to read on their own. But, I engaged with my sons and read a-loud to them everything from the Scarlet Letter to George Washington's socks, to The Lord of the Rings trilogy and many, many more in between.
My sons and I are first hand proof that reading is fundamental to a family's happiness. As a parent if you read a-loud to your child you remove the guilt of failing your child. Dramatic comment? Maybe. Or, maybe not. I know the span of time from when I stopped reading a-loud to my sons to when I began again I experienced guilt at missing out on something wonderful and having a firm hand in their educational growth.
Beautiful, Beautiful. I cannot and never will doubt that God is. When I see beauty through the camera lens such as this photographer experienced,
or simply when I see a sky my own eyes have beheld, I see the very hand of God. Man did not make this. God did! He is a creative God and He offers His creation to reveal Himself to us. Will you see Him?
I tucked my spiritual journal into my leather workbag intent on re-visiting LIGHT. I've been remiss in experiencing LIGHT, my One Little Word, lately, and I missed it. Making LIGHT visible in my life has been intentional and it has brought me into a deeper relationship with Jesus, mostly because I am seeking after His light and allowing Him to chase away the darkness that just wants to creep in unnoticed until it consumes most of the light around me. So, I resolved to make a difference, today! In my pursuit of light I realized it has been a relational experience, not one unlike prayer is. Then I read this article:
On prayer: "He is drawing us beyond what we’ve yet seen and experienced, and he’s calling out a trust in us that we don’t think we have — and are scared to really exercise. Jesus’s purpose is not to shame us for our little faith. He’s inviting us to come further up and further in." - Jon Bloom.
Prayer. I was reminded it is about relationship, too. I have often struggled with the very aspects regarding prayer this article confronts. But, I don't want to lose heart anymore. I want that 'I trust You' to mean just that.
I cannot even begin to say how beautiful, beautiful this is. I think I will add it to my bucket list as well. It would be an experience worth having.
As someone who has read The Lord of the Rings a-loud from cover to cover [as stated earlier] I appreciated this beautiful article by Scott Sauls when he writes on when "it is sometimes hard to believe that your work, done for God’s glory, has enduring significance, [but] it absolutely does." When it seems like your life is going nowhere or your life's work is insignificant, instead, consider this: "I encourage you to consider not only the past but also the future, where the significance of your life’s work, which may seem like only a leaf or two, will be revealed as an essential part of the tree that God will place right in the middle of his City—the great Tree of Life, which will be for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2)." - Scott Sauls.
Every so often...read: on a daily basis...I am confronted in my spirit with 'what if's', regarding Christians. What if we...? Usually, my what if's are spurred on by the not-so-Christ-like actions of a believer and I lean towards love and grace and mercy and justice in my spirit and thoughts and heart. I read this article and said to myself, "My sentiments, often!" But, even more than thinking this for others I was considering how can I model this!!!!
I aspired to beautiful, beautiful in sharing these places around the world wide web. I believe I was on point.