light in the wilderness

The Lord bless you. And keep you. Make His face shine upon you and be gracious you. The Lord turn his face toward you, and give you peace. 
(lyrics from The Blessing by Cody Carnes & Kari Jobe … go listen, it’s so good, link below)
This song. It’s a blessing. It’s a prayer. And I’m singing it for this world. As I sit here in my chair in the late hours of the night, I find myself smiling at the blanketed kids who made their way down the stairs on a Sunday night. There’s freedom here in these walls now. We’ve thrown a lot out the window because all of the sudden, life is different. What mattered yesterday, isn’t at the top of the list today. It’s frightening and it’s hard, but it’s beautiful too.
So here I sit. Doing battle with all the thoughts swirling in this head and heart of mine. I’ve read your posts. Watched some of the same clips on social media as a lot of you. And I see us, still bickering a bit, but all of the sudden united like never before, with a common goal. Our world is sick. This spinning planet full of hopes and hurts and all sorts of busy has retreated. The highways we’ve paved are empty. The walls that have separated us into nations and peoples and languages, even those that exist between us as neighbors, have crumbled. And it’s like we’re all seeing each other for the first time. It’s humanity, banded together. We’re reaching across the patio rails that separate us, and we’re singing a new song. Here we all are, the people of the entire world, with our fingertips pressed against the windows of our right now, realizing maybe we’re not so different after all. And maybe life’s not all about what we’ve made it to be. Maybe beauty and the best parts of life aren’t wrapped up in the nice and tidy packages we work so hard for.
 
I’m not minimizing the struggle we’re facing. There are people who are sick and dying. People who have to suffer painfully, all alone in hospital beds because of the quarantine. It’s hard to even wrap your mind around until you’ve had a taste of it and experienced it first hand. Dear friends of mine have. And most of us aren’t working. We don’t have income to pay our bills. The whole world is hurting. And still, I’ve seen snippets of something beautiful here. It stirs up my faith, and I have words that need writing on this Monday morning.
 
I was taken back to something I wrote a few years ago as I had my late night worship sesh last night. It was at a time when I was swimming in science and creation and somehow John the Baptist. I was searching out scripture, blogs, books, sermons — and God was teaching me something about the desert places. Showing me there’s a string of beauty that we can only see in the small, dry places. The ones that feel awfully similar to where we are right now. So although it was written awhile back, God is asking me to share it today. Try to stick with it to the end. It might seem unrelated, but I promise hope shines thru at the end.
 
***
 
Oh we dream big, don’t we? We want MORE. But in reality, we are so small. So very small. We seek out the big things, thinking they will fill us and comfort us, content us. But they never have, and they never will. We were made for something else. Someone else. And as we sit here, stripped down, laid nearly bare, I believe we have an opportunity to lean into the quiet, small places and seek the face of God. Hope is always twinkling on the edge of all our fears. And sometimes it takes a desert for us to realize our need.
 
God is HERE. And whether you realize it or not, all of mankind is His. And He wants nothing more than for us to turn to Him so He can gather us in His arms like it says in Isaiah 40.
He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.
…
Do you not know? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men shall stumble and fall; but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. (Isaiah 40:11,28-31)
 
I was reminded in Isaiah 40 of the voice of one calling in the desert… to prepare the way for the Lord. And oddly enough, we read that a highway for our God was made in the wilderness. The desert place. God is always doing something with the deserts in our life.
 
So I started looking closely at the desert. And deserts are BARREN. Empty. It’s a tricky and severe environment; one nobody really wants to stay in. It’s dry — bone aching dry. The temperatures can go from one extreme to the next. It’s a windy, thirsty, LONELY place. But it’s also where John the Baptist was called to. ? And not for just a season either. It was his home. He grew up there. He could of easily chosen to be in the towns, living a better life. The normal, good life. Sort of like the ones we had a few weeks ago. Before the viral storm rolled across the globe and left us wanting.
 
John the Baptist could have lived among the religious leaders, spent his days at the priestly synagogue. He could have really been “something”. His father Zechariah was even a priest. One who experienced a miracle, having had an angel speak to him. I’m sure John grew up hearing those stories from his parents. What a joy he must have been to them. Their only child; the precious dreamed of gift from God they had always wanted. And guess where they took him?
 
The DESERT. (… Ah-hem. What?)
 
There were so many opportunities for pride and self seeking glory for this family. They had been given a miracle baby, one who would be cousin to Jesus himself. His mother even felt the Holy Spirit FILL her womb. Can you imagine getting to tell THAT story? And we read that her sweet child was filled with the the Holy Spirit of God from birth. (and all the mothers of toddlers gasp…) And of course, there’s John himself who was prophesied about in the Old Testament. Yep. PROPHESIED about. Can you imagine living knowing you had been prophesied about? Or even knowing someone who was prophesied about and long awaited according to scripture? Sounds like he should have been in a castle, not a desert. But God’s ways are not ours. Clearly.
 
A voice of one calling: ‘In the desert prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.’ (Isaiah 40:3)
 
I’m trying to picture myself near to them. Growing up within ear shot of the boy who angels and scripture spoke of. Just a regular person who for some reason, God would use. I’m sure it was hard to make sense of for the people during that time. Hard to believe. It required eyes of faith to take hold of those kinds of words and truths and allow them space to be real. Maybe people like John with strange callings belong in the wide open spaces of the desert. I’m starting to wonder if maybe we do, too.
 
The irony for me is that this family could have totally claimed glory and fame for themselves, at least in a worldly sense. Oh the selfies they could have taken. Wouldn’t everyone want to know them? They could have reveled in it. Moved into the city and been the favorites at all the parties. But they didn’t choose that, did they? They chose the desert. They chose to be weird and to raise their kid even weirder. John wasn’t being raised conventionally. He lived in the desert. He lived and looked a fool — but he knew WHO he was. WHOSE he was. And more importantly, WHO HIS GOD WAS. Maybe it takes a little bit of the awkward and uncomfortable to really be able to take hold of that. And it’s fair to say John chose the desert too. That part gets me. He didn’t run. He chose different over popular. He chose to live a little harder, to follow his calling, to live the life of a WITNESS.
 
There’s so many things buried into the story of John. So many applications. But what I’m seeing this morning is the desert. God called John into the wilderness because He wanted to use him. And John? He needed the desert too. He need to be prepared for his ministry. He needed to see the world differently and live in a way where God was at the forefront of his life. It was there and only there that God could prepare him for what was ahead. That doesn’t sound too much different than what we’re called to, does it?
 
I’ve read the story of John before and never seen the grit. I’ve read the words about him eating locusts and wild honey and wearing weird camel’s hair clothes. I knew he was different. But I didn’t see the struggle. I didn’t consider the desert. He was called by God and that alone sounds big and like something. But that was all that I saw. I didn’t see the smallness of his work or his days.
 
I think sometimes we read the bible like an instagram feed. We see the beautiful. It sounds and looks like something we all want. But the beauty that lasts, the one that actually means something, isn’t found in the most beautiful picture or end game. It’s hidden between the frames. In the cracks of life when we are on our knees with our faces in the sand.
 
To be called and used and find the forever beauty we long for comes at a price, as following Jesus always should. We want the pretty picture, but we have to set aside our pride to find the good stuff. We have to stop worrying about how we look, if we’re liked, and stop trying to jump from mountaintop to mountaintop. We have to take up our cross and die to ourselves, and allow ourselves to spend some time in the valleys. That’s where beauty is made. But when we enter the hard arid places of life, WE WANT OUT. It’s not comfortable, and it’s not pretty — so God must not mean for us to be there. Right?
 
Being called to follow God is almost always going to include a trip to the desert, and we should be thankful it does. For some of us, a good portion of our lives are spent there… (ummm, wait…what…) Now don’t freak out and run. We have the stories of John and the Israelites and many others to show us the beauty of the wilderness. Just hang with me a minute…
 
Now it may not include lying in the sun with lemonade — sorry. It didn’t for John, and it really shouldn’t for us either. It’s a DESERT remember?
 
So as I picture John there, I’m starting to see myself there too. My guess is that John was a bit lonely and I can relate to that. I have friends and a sweet husband but sometimes as I draw closer to God, I feel further from everyone else. Alone really. So a bit lonely like John, but maybe just lonely enough to look harder and run harder after God. And I bet John knew what it was like to feel worn down, soul thirsty and all a mess; like he didn’t fit in ANYWHERE. That sounds familiar and like a lot of things we try to avoid, doesn’t it? But God took him there — to the sometimes harsh and quiet place so that He could do a deep work in him. And John stayed there in the midst of it.
 
This is what Jesus has to say about him:
I tell you the truth: Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist… (Matthew 11:11)
 
And if you consider what John had done at this point, it doesn’t seem big and glorious. Not really. But to God, HE WAS. He lived a strange yet dedicated life in the desert and called for people to repent. He spoke boldly and called out sin. And he did it because apparently that is what makes the way for the Lord to work. He didn’t need a stage or great clothes or an ear tickling message. He said hard things, lived a hard life with very little, and gave witness to the Lord. He lived a beautifully simple life.
 
And here we are, at least most of us, and we’ve been living pretty good lives. But one taste of the desert places of life and we want out. We want to get back to the time we felt in control, put together, strong, and were able to do more and accomplish more in what looks like His name. We want it to look pretty, and we want to get there fast.
 
But the things we have to learn in the desert take time. So let’s allow ourselves to sit in it a bit. It is hard being there, but God is DOING something in the desert. He takes advantage of the wilderness that Satan thinks will be the end of us. God knows where the wells of water are, and He will lead you and fill you and provide for you. Take heart. You can do this. You have the WORD. You have the SPIRIT. You are not alone, even if you feel like it. Just keep your face bent to His. If you haven’t noticed, the sun shines blinding bright in the desert because GOD IS THERE my friends. You may want to hide in the shadows and sleep thru the heat. I get it. It’s not easy. But don’t rush out of there. God can use every bit of what seems like a desert for your good. So sink into His presence. Seek His loving face. He will not leave you wanting.
 
The Israelites spent 40 years in the desert teetering back and forth between faith and failure. They followed God; they saw miracles. Many of whom lived and died in that very wilderness. That’s hard to wrap our minds around. It almost looks like their life was a waste, doesn’t it?
 
You mean they didn’t end up on the mountaintop? Some never made it to the promised land, made it BIG, or got the bigger house?
 
They struggled and some even died still living in the wilderness, and that sounds pretty horrible. But we’ve overlooked the beauty again. We think it’s only found on the mountaintop. But God is in the business of turning dried up streams into living water. All we have to do is look to Him in this right now desert. He has something for each of us here.
 
Just look at any famous, wealthy person. Are they completely fulfilled? I think you’ll find that money and fame and the mountaintop are not enough. We will always want more. The MORE we seek can only be found in the wilderness. In the upside down gospel, where Jesus is. Life might look like we’re just wandering from watering hole to watering hole out here. But we’re forgetting about the LIVING WATER. God has it covered. Water flows down the mountain to the valleys. That’s were the streams and pools are my friends. In the valley. The mountaintop sounds awesome, but there’s not much for us there.
 
So what is to be gained in the wilderness and desert?
 
A beautiful war-torn faith is what. We just have to look between the lines. We look back at stories like the Israelites (or at least I do) and I see a bunch of idiots. (yikes!) But seriously… People following magnificent clouds of God and eating bread falling from the sky, and they still screwed it up and missed God. But what we don’t see is the beauty of the repentance experienced in their souls. The beauty of failing and turning and seeing God waiting there for you. Still wanting to lead and love you through it. That’s something. That’s a life well lived. What if they would have sailed right through the desert, landed in the promise land and had all the water and food and goodness this world has to offer? That’s what so many rationalize about God. If He was a good God, he’d take us straight there. But is that really LIVING? I don’t think so. That’s not where we learn and grow. It’s the time we actually learn to appreciate God and the good things.
 
It’s the valleys where we see and experience the most of God. That’s where we’re ushered in to the truest, most beautiful good. It’s where God weaves a beautiful tapestry of the darkest and the brightest colors together. That’s what creates the most striking contrast. When we FEEL it most. When the colors of the good become even more beautiful and the ugly hard it’s own sort of precious masterpiece.
 
As I’m reading, I’m finding that John, the Israelites, even Jesus himself spent time in the desert before God used them. So if you’re feeling like you’re in a desert of sorts, look at those stories. Look at those people, and see how God showed up for them. You are no different. Take some time to dig into that bible of yours and let God speak hope over you. You are precious and loved and created for His glory too.
 
And the DESERT. Don’t forget what a necessary beautiful place it is. It’s where blessings are given. Where the patriarchs reached out in their own times of struggle and gave blessings to their children’s children, just like the song I’m singing says. We all want that blessing don’t we? But the song and the words and all the John the Baptist sermons crossing my lap are telling me fancy and big and the mountaintop are not where the blessing is. We can sit in our small living rooms and walk a bit thru the empty deserts and do small things and struggle, and it’s okay. It’s more than okay. All we have to do is look at the space between our two feet (like Jill Briscoe says) and do whatever it is He has called us to do, RIGHT WHERE HE HAS US. Desert and all. I know there’s a lot on the horizon that’s going to be hard. But we have a God who has measured the waters of the earth in the hollow of His hand. He’s got this. He’s got us.
 
So let’s look for the light in the desert places, the ones we feel small and a little lost in. We have to remember that Jesus is with us. And when we are weak and bone-weary and ready to flee the wilderness, let’s not forget God is making room in our souls for what’s next. He’s there blowing the dust around and working in our souls and making beauty. He uses the empty space for our good, blowing the bits of our lives around just enough to make our rough edges smooth and refine us. Ready us. It will be beautiful. We know this because of Romans 8. We know this because of Ecclesiastes 3:11 …♥
He has made everything beautiful in its time.
 
And give this song a listen. It was sent to me yesterday by a sweet friend, and I can’t stop singing it. Let’s pray this for our world.
 
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beauty wrapped in husks of a dying world

We tromped thru the corn a few weeks ago before the snow came. It was a brisk fall morning and though my lungs weren’t quite ready for it, the kids were. So to the fields we went. Our little ones chased the cold away with armfuls of cobs and did their best to cozy up to the cows. And us Mommas? We followed their lead. They picked up decaying corn like they’d found nuggets of gold, and we followed suit. I grabbed up this messy little husk and snapped a shot on my phone. For weeks now I’ve been staring at this photo. Trying to find words for the beauty hidden within this quick shot of lifeless corn.

There’s nothing special about my photo or this little forgotten husk either. The photo wasn’t styled or planned; I’m no photographer. Surely your lives would be no less complete or glorious not having laid eyes on this cob of corn. It’s the accidental fruit of a morning meandering thru the cold and mud and cows and then — bam…
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BEAUTY.
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Because me and my camera are magic? Nope. Because GOD is.
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This world is littered with glimpses of glory aching to awaken our souls. It crunches underfoot and lingers in our landscapes but even if we have eyes that see, it’s a fight to see past ourselves. We choose blindness every day in one way or another. We suppress the truth like it says in Romans 1:18. The truth that we were made for Him, and that He deserves the glory.
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I’ve been circling a few verses in Romans as I ponder the beauty in this world. Wondering how in the world stray cobs of corn can hold even a bit of wonder. And this verse struck me:
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities — his eternal power and divine nature — have been clearly seen, being understood FROM WHAT HAS BEEN MADE, so that men are without excuse. Romans 1:18-20 NIV 1984 (emphasis mine).
Did you catch that? God’s eternal power and divine nature are on display for us every day. Where? In WHAT HAS BEEN MADE. The dirt, the trees, the sky, the universe. You. Me. And even the corn cobs of yesterday that seemingly hold no value at all. We tend to look right by them. We willfully suppress the truth of God that is marked in them. Every once in awhile though, in an accidental phone snapshot, this beauty beckons to be named. God’s handiwork.
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His power and divinity wrapped in husks of a dying world.
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And I’m back at the beginning, where God “spoke life into dust” (lyric from Into Dust by Mack Brock). We read in Genesis 1:31 that God created and called it good. Very good. He claims GOODNESS in what He’s made. He claims himself in it really.
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I see a garden, and in it I see beauty; slivers of which we still see today. Still GOOD too, just like the God whose heart they reflect. This world may be broken, but it breathes out the whisper of the same voice that made it all. This world is speaking, and it’s telling the story of the God behind it. The Greek word for “what has been made” in Romans 1:20 is poiēma, which is where we get our word poem. God intended from the very beginning to communicate with us thru what He’s created, and what He’s crafted is a work of art, my friends.
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This world is a poem that whispers to our souls. And even the dried up useless pieces still tell the story.
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Besides this verse calling out the poem of God in creation, it also calls out the human condition; where we all find ourselves apart from God’s grace. When I first read these verses in Romans, I didn’t see myself as the wicked men who suppress the truth (in Romans 1:18). That couldn’t be me. I capture snippets of glory and call God out in the trees (sometimes). So clearly I’m not THAT guy. Right? But as I studied and read commentaries, I realized that right before this Paul set the stage with the gospel saying,
the gospel…is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes… A righteousness that is by faith from first to last… Romans 1:16-17
He leads with the gospel and follows up by explaining why we need it in the first place. Our wicked hearts willfully choose to suppress the truth, and therefore, are without excuse. So the wicked truth suppressor… ah-hem… that IS me after-all.
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We may deny the truth that we were made for Him. We can reject Christ and the truth of God’s word. But not one of us can deny the beauty we see in the world around us. I’ve read that it’s the undeniable witness. An ever present evidence that God does in fact exist.
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Beauty is from God. There’s really no place for it in accidental cosmic explosions or naturalist evolution. It doesn’t add up in atheistic theories. Even scientists have a hard time making sense of beauty in regard to it’s purpose and origin in this world.

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But still, there it is, plainly on display for each and every soul that’s ever lived. The breathtaking wonder of God’s DNA; the beauty of his thumbprint. The stamp of divinity that nobody can explain away. It‘s beautiful, and it’s what we long for. It’s the thing that has us climbing mountains, chasing sunsets, and catching snowflakes on our tongues.
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I want to point out here that I’m not promoting pantheism (which worships the universe and/or nature as god itself). The created things themselves are not to be worshiped. The trees are not God. The sun is not God; nor is the universe. They contain the mere fingerprint of God as I mentioned before, but are not themselves God. I believe it’s worth mentioning because I write a lot about seeing God in nature, and I don’t want to unintentionally encourage the worship of nature or created “things”. There’s a big difference. Even as we move on in Romans, we find they struggled with this same kind of misplaced worship.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles… They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator — who is forever praised. Amen. Romans 1:24-25
I’m finding that I have more in common with the Romans than I first thought. My fallen nature leans towards suppressing the truth (v18), not glorifying and thanking God for what He’s made (v21) and exchanging the worship of God with the worship of things (v23).
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That’s a pretty depressing yet surprisingly accurate list. So how does all this relate to the corn cobs and the beauty and the poem of God being whispered in our ears? It reminds us that by nature we lean toward not seeing God. We lean towards stuffing the truth of the very evident God into black hole of our souls. It means we don’t thank him and glorify him as we ought. It means if we’re not worshiping Him, we’re actively worshiping something else.
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It means we’re in battle my friends.
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Let’s remember to hit our knees, raise our hands, and give God glory.
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Let’s fight for eyes that see him in the corn cobs. He’s wrapped his beauty, bits of his reflection, in the husks of this dying world.
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Let’s crack these eyes open to poem before us.
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oh how he loves us

Oh how He loves us.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge — that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

The love of Christ beyond our thought capacity. It surpasses knowledge ya’ll. We CANNOT understand the depths of it. And as I think on this verse, I’m all the more convinced that this love is something we grab hold of and grow to understand TOGETHER, just like it says.

…that we may have power, together with the saints, to grasp how wide, long, and high…

I’m weeks into the study of community — contemplating trees, clouds and the skies above, and I see this God of ours in every detail. In the colors and in the call for us to link arms together.

As I stare out to where heaven meets earth (as the David Crowder band says), I’m blinded by the DEPTHS. The lengths He’s gone to show us LOVE.

When we think of this love we see the cross. The glorious cross. It’s love at its truest. But the imagery, that loses some of us, doesn’t it? It’s hard to close in on. It seems so far off. And yet, it’s the ultimate picture of His bottomless love for us.

Thankfully, His love is found sprinkled in everything in between too. So God makes it easy for us. HE PAINTS THE SKY. His love graces every sun ray, and the lines of light waves that color the skies. He created it all. LIGHT and WAVES and PARTICLES, and yes, even the science behind them.

It’s His hand that colors our world.

It’s His hand behind the cones of vision that make up our sight. It’s His hand that makes it possible to even open our eyelids and take in the morning sunrise or the hints of green we breeze by in nature. It’s His hand that brushes the blue above that overhangs our every day.

There it is. HIS design. And it’s woven in LOVE, my friends. We miss it though. We forget God’s handiwork. We don’t see him in the details. But we question Him in the brokenness, don’t we? We think His hand owns the injustice. We somehow think all that is God’s doing. Not mankind’s. And all the while, as we raise our fists in indifference, we are still here, folded in His mercy. Sandwiched in His grace in a world that we believe is all science and no God.

I was in the middle of making dinner — lasagna at that — a meal I haven’t made in almost 5 years. Oddly enough, it was the dinner I made the night my hubby fell ill a few years back, and I remember watching him moaning on the coach holding his chest and thinking my lasagna was the cause. Since then, the meal has literally no appeal around here. But this week Fall blew in and with it came God’s grace saying it was time to boil the noodles and stop holding it against lasagna and The Pioneer Woman (it was her recipe). It sounds funny, I know. But being ripped apart thru illness and hard circumstances sticks with you in ways you wouldn’t have thought.

There I was tearing apart my kitchen, slinging pasta and sauce, and my daughter and son came running in telling me I HAD TO SEE THIS. I grumbled as they pulled me away from the kitchen, but I nearly lost my breath when I saw what all the fuss was about.

THIS turned out to be a jaw dropping sunset snuck in between the bitter fall wind and a field of gold. It makes me tear up knowing that my kids know this about me. They know my crazy, and they can’t help but take part. They’re in the car with me as God’s glory comes to life on our drive to school and everywhere in between. They roll their eyes and make fun of me, but I don’t mind. Annoying them brings me secret joy. JOY, you guys. And joy comes again and again too, each time they snap a sunset on a grandparent’s phone and text it to me or come running to tell me of the random glory they’ve found in a leaf or cloud or feather.

So it came as no surprise as I dropped all things pasta, stuffed my feet in my son’s poop boots (we have a chicken coup, ew), grabbed my camera and chased the color down County Line Road. I was a sight — but you guys, SO WAS THE SKY.

And as I said, we go deeper together. We grasp the lengths and depths together dear ones. In steps community as we link arms and name Him in this world. It’s contagious. Just like with my kids. They see me naming Him, and they feel permission to do the same. And then somehow, in the middle of the mess, we see a little more of this God of ours. We experience a bit of that fullness rising in our chests, reminding us whose we are and why we’re here. It’s gives us perspective as we glorify God. We become smaller, and our troubles do too.

Today it’s me linking arms with you via a wonky lasagna and a corn sunset that screams COME LORD JESUS. And not because life is hard. And it is, IT IS. I know this more than anyone. But because He loves us in ways we cannot even begin to comprehend. Come Lord Jesus because we were made for YOU.

I may be in my pajamas and wielding a camera while standing in the freezing cold corn, but I’m here to call God out in my little corner of the world. I see Him in nature, in creation and I can’t help but snap shots and log the beauty. The pictures aren’t the beauty I hunger for either. They help tell the story, but it’s the God behind them that steals the show. The God I see in the every day. The one smiling at us thru sunsets and weeds and random birds.

I’m not sure where life finds you today. But I know God went to great lengths to show His love to this world. You may not have a photo taking obsession or corn framing your view like I do, but you have a sky of blue above and a sunset of colors that never fails to make an appearance. It stretches the expanse of life and brings a sense of peace to our souls, no matter where we land.

That’s what blue does, by the way. It’s been studied by smart people. Look it up for yourself if you don’t trust the crazy pajama pasta lady. But BLUE CALMS. It affects our minds. It affects our bodies. It brings a sense of calm and clarity to our senses. Maybe it’s just a tidbit compared to the realities we face. But still, there it is. It’s what God designed to ice the cake of every dang day. And He loves us so specifically, so graciously, that He’s blanketed us in this blue sky soul balm every day.

Mind blown.

OH HOW HE LOVES US. Head over to you tube and sing with me…

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