Week Three 8-10-2006

 

Happy Friday and Blessings to all!!!

Picture this: Standing in line at the Wal-Mart dressing rooms, on one side the shopping cart with back-to-school clothes to be tried on and on the other side my antsy nearly 6-year-old little girl.  It’s our turn.  I ask her, “Stasi-Ruth do you need mommy do come in there and help you try these on?”  She pauses only a moment before excitedly replying, “Nope, I can do it all by myself! I’m a big girl!” With that she takes the first six items to try on and disappears behind the open door to her little dressing room.  Only a minute or so later and she pops out in an adorable red flowery dress and says, “I love this one!  It’s a keeper!” And just as quickly disappears again.  This continues for each outfit, some dubbed as not a keeper, and I sort the throw backs by hanging them on the outside of the cart instead of the inside.  This scene from last weekend brings to mind a line from a country song I like…”I love this crazy, tragic, sometimes almost magic, awful, beautiful life.”…I think this describes life pretty well, especially life blessed with a child or children.  Crazy: I found four informal definitions of this word, “possessed by enthusiasm or excitement,” “immoderately fond; infatuated,” “intensely involved or preoccupied,” and “foolish or impractical; senseless.” Looking back over my short 27 years on this earth I can honestly say I have in one way or another experienced each and every one of those.  Tragic: part of the definition I found for this word includes, “very sad,” which I know I have experienced only lightly.  I have had things I felt were tragic happen near me, to those I am close to but I have been blessed in that I have really not had a lot of tragedy hit me, at least not on the level I associate with the word.  Nonetheless, since tragic moments still happen around us every day, so life can be tragic.  Sometimes almost magic: Need I say more?  I do need to emphasize that almost is key to me here because I do not believe in magic.  I believe in miracles that God blesses us with and I believe in illusions.  Still, there are moments I wish I could bottle up and open later when tragic events occur around me…release a little “magic.”   Being pregnant with Stasi was a miracle of life that felt like magic and watching her grow up {way too fast!} can feel like magic.  Awful: There are things around us that are awful, there are things we do and say that are awful.  I feel awful when I don’t pray enough during the day.  The more I pray, the less awful I feel and I know it’s because “awful” is a feeling that Satan uses to pull us down and try to keep us there.  That’s why I keep Bible passages taped up all over my desk.  When I feel that awful tug downwards, I read, “This is the day the Lord has made…let us rejoice and be glad in it!”  Or, “You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples.”  Then I say a little prayer and smile.  Beautiful: I think this one is my favorite because it can be perceived so many ways!  The perception can also be said about life, life can be perceived in many, many ways.  That being said, beautiful is probably not only an adjective of life but also a comparison.  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?  Perception!  Life is what we see it to be, we choose how we view it.  There's that word again, I guess it's my biggest faith concept right now.  Grasping the choices God gives us.  Back to beautiful, and how it can be viewed differently by each person.  Take my husband for instance, in his eyes I am beautiful, he's always telling me so.  {What a great catch I have!!!} I don't always seem to agree with him there but I have a different perception.    On the other hand, he struggles a bit more to see the brighter side to life especially when troubles arise.  Which for us has been often lately!  However, I am like the cheerleader most of the time trying to lift everyone's spirits even when it's the 4th quarter, 2:00 minute warning and we're down by more than 2 touchdowns.  I try my hardest to see life as beautiful and though I may stumble, I cling to God and His promises and I can feel the devil flee when I quote verses to ward off a bad mood. 

My prayers are with you all this week.  It is my perception that you are each beautiful!  I pray you see the beauty in life this week and the beauty in others.  I pray also that God blesses each of you and grants that His favor may go with you.

Love through Christ,

Niki

 

Psalm 27:4 "One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His temple."

 

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