When I used to go to the ocean one time every year for vacation, I would, along with my girls, leap from the car without unloading a thing, burst open the front door of the cottage and run straight through it, out the back door and just stop. Stunned. Stunned at the majesty of the ocean in front of me. It took my breath away, while at the same time it comforted me – it was still there.
Now I live on this very same beach. I walk up that same beach path everyday and stand in that same spot. Yet I don’t get that same rush that I got ten years ago. Is it because I see it everyday? Is it because it’s always outside my front door? I don’t know. What I do know is that I still feel very small beside it. Another thing I know is that the shoreline and the treasures it holds for me are different each time I walk it. And still another thing I know is that it is my home. It is my playground. I sit on the edge of a rock and my inner child, my artist child, draws and plays in the sand. This beach is a garden where my ideas grow.
This very same ocean that used to stun me after being away from it all year, now wraps its arms around me. It is still my place where heaven meets earth. It is up to me to take the time to notice how different it is each day and not let complacency steal the gifts God places on this “altar” before me. I came upon a line this morning that says it all:
“We live in an art gallery of creativity and yet are content to gaze only at the carpet.”
The point of the piece I was reading was that God doesn’t have to perform mind-blowing miracles to prove He’s alive and right here with us. His miracle is in the odd shell at my feet. It is in the way a father, with four girls, just came into this coffee shop I’m sitting in to buy a dozen donuts. The miracle is in how he handled the girls, allowing each to choose two kinds of the decorated treats, patiently waiting for daughter number three to make her choice, while tiny daughter, in red glitter slippers, knew EXACTLY what she wanted.
Where is your miracle for today? It may be right across the breakfast table or in a highchair feeding Cheerios to the dog. “We live in an art gallery of creativity…..”
And so, as another day goes by, today Lord, help me keep my eyes up off of the carpet (but please don’t let me trip over anything) and…I have written.
PS- “chocolate dip” certainly constitutes a miracle for me….
Leave a Reply