Eyes to see

My dad recently told me a story concerning something I said when I was younger that was a perspective changer for him, and has now become one for me. We were making our way up the driveway to our country home and my dad was taking notice of all the yard work that had yet to be done. What particularly caught his eye was the multitude of yellow weeds that had arisen out of the needing to be mowed grass in our front yard. Before he could utter his contempt of the weeds, I turned to my dad and declared their beauty. "Dad, look at all of those pretty yellow flowers growing in our yard!!" My dad told me many years later that that was a changing day for him. He saw the plants though the eyes of a child who hadn't yet been informed by the world what Beauty was and wasn't.

After listening to this story, I realized how much my perspective has changed since my childhood years. I began to wonder when this change in me occurred? When did I begin to define what could and couldn't be declared beautiful? Further, when did I begin to view things as not capable of being of God or from God? When did weeds become ugly? Was it the weeds themselves that changed, or was it the eyes through which the weeds were seen?

When did I become blind to Beauty?

I've wrestled with this concept: Beauty.
Things being of God or from God.
Accepting certain gifts from God and rejecting others.
But if God is "in all and through all", then is He not apart of the ugly?
Isn't He the one that makes them Beautiful?
Isn't that me?
Aren't I the weed that needs to be looked at through the eyes of One who sees me as beautiful?
Shouldn't I have those eyes as well?

So I'm left with a yearning: I so desperately want to see!
I want to see Beauty as He created it.
To see awakening.
To see life.
To see like Him where everything is Beautiful in time. (Eccl. 3:11)
To see Him in all things. 
Because to witness Life. Beauty. Him. is indeed to be Alive. 
And there is always Life to be found.
I just need eyes to see.

rest assured

Pain is often avoidant.
Swept under the rug.
Minimalized.
Candy-coated.
When it is discussed openly, it becomes an intellectual conversation.
A conversation of the past.
It's as though we become strong when we discuss our weaknesses. We don't absorb them or allow them into our sense of identity. Instead, we place these negative emotions in the past tense. It's easier to claim those "past" painful experiences because it assumes that now, in the present, we are strong and are not in pain. We are no longer those weak individuals that experienced pain.

However, when I do, on occasion, decide to allow another into my pain, I find something unexpected.

Something beautiful, and yet terrifying.
Something warm and inviting, while at the same time humbling.
A sigh of relief in the midst of terror.
A hope for something new.
I find Grace.


And during this period of humility, His grace is sufficient.
Not because I am making it sufficient for me.
Not because it should be sufficient.
But because it is.
Currently.
Always.
Forever.
I am free to be in the midst of pain.
I am free to experience it without manipulating it.
Without cleaning it up.
Without justifying it.

I can just be...... fully embraced in the grace of God.
At rest.
At peace.
Free.

Drying Out

It's ugly.

It's messy. 

It's confusing. 

It's an emptying. 

But not a forced emptying on my part. Rather a passive emptying. I will use an analogy that has become quite useful in my processing: 

I am a well and desire to be full of water. Effort has been spent finding bucket after bucket to fill my rather large well. 

I'm tired. 

I'm still not full. 

And I'm depleted. 

Done trying. 

No more buckets. 

It's as if I am finally standing still and watching my well slowly dry out and all of my vain efforts of "filling" it becoming useless. 

It's a process of emptying. 

I've spent years trying to keep myself full. Never wanting to truly see what lies at the bottom of the well. Full for others. Full to keep my needs at a distance. Full to keep people at a distance. While at the same time claiming closeness. And perhaps sometimes there was closeness, but it never satisfied because it wasn't always genuine. I would become frustrated. I was frustrated because I would begin to hand others buckets as well hoping that maybe they had enough endurance to fill my well. But they couldn't. 

These efforts caused me to feel even more alone. Alone in my filling. Alone in my efforts. Hoping for that person/circumstance who would come with a large bucket and save me from my my fear of emptiness. 

I longed for that. 

I longed to be at peace.... at rest... whole..... full. 

I've prayed for this fulfillment while at the same time throwing bucket after bucket of water into my well. But God has taken my buckets (tweetable). haha! He has taken them away one by one. Now I am in the midst of waiting. Waiting for my well to dry out, and to finally see what lies at the bottom. 

Waiting for God to fill. 

Waiting for God to act. 

And in a way, He is. He is taking away me efforts, my clutches, my false senses of security. 

And so I wait. But the waiting is painful. Especially when all of the survival mechanisms that I have adopted are seeking to quench my thirst and fill my well.

However, my soul reminds me that if I drink this water, I will only be thirsty again. 

So I wait..... And that's where I am at....... waiting and clinging to the promise that "whoever drinks the water He gives me will never thirst. Indeed the water He gives me will become in me a spring of water welling up to eternal life." 

This is my promise. 

My hope. 

My Salvation. 

He is my Living Water.