Open Your Eyes To All The Gifts

 

It’s the back of our house that’s always dark. There’s a door out at the back of our kitchen and a tall wall that lets no light in. But today, today is different. Today the kitchen is where I want to be, where I want to sit and think and pray and create. The sun is so strong on this beautiful winter day that it makes its way over the wall throwing its rays into our kitchen, right on the God Loves You banner, right where my eye 

catches it every time I stand at the cooker checking the meat and cutting the vegetables.

They say beauty heals. And I believe them. Just this beauty I see out the window that creeps in to make my heart sing, just the way God always thinks of new and unexpected ways to make you smile and experience His love and kindness, just that makes me want to dance and it makes my heart skip a beat because my Lover loves me and pursues me and will never let me go. He is here to never forget about me, always see me, always listen and hear me, and to always show me I am His.

And there are moments and mornings and times and days where I wonder, can I stay in this beauty and never leave it and always look into the sun and the moon and the things that make me want to forget all the darkness and make me want to be beautiful, can I stay in them forever? But I live in a world with failing bodies, broken hearts, and messed up minds. I live in a loud and blurry world that makes it difficult to see the need of developing the inner eye, the inner eye that will see the beauty everywhere; that will see all things as gifts; that will always offer thanks. There are people who will always offer harshness and careless words instead of loving arms and kind spirits. And it is hard to live in this world and not be brought down, not to let their actions and words define me, not to think of myself less, not to become like them; but God knows. He knows it’s not easy and He knows we need Him but that’s the way He made it to be and I pray I never forget to offer thanks.

It’s the people you would least expect it from, your brothers and sisters in Christ that can hurt you like no one else. It’s all expectation, and humanity. We know they know Christ and should treat us better because God loves us and them, but we are only humans, we mess up and fail and as much as I hate it, I do it, too. I let people down, I fail hard and fall and disappoint. I grew to be thankful though, because if I never failed and always brought love and kind words and never ending encouragement to people’s lives, how much would they look to God rather than me for everything? I have to embrace who I am, yes, a child of God, but also only a human, never perfect. Oh how I praise Him for that!

I try and learn and dream and pray for open eyes. I pray my eyes would always see the beauty, always see the gift, always see the light, always see the glimpse of eternity, always see a bit of God in everything. He has surrounded me with a beautiful but broken world, and I pray my eyes would see it and be thankful and always bring praise back to the Creator and Giver of all. It’s not always easy and I know there is a lot of things I could complain and not be happy about, but why would I do that to myself, to others, to Him. When I realize that it is not God who is in my debt but I who am in His great debt, then doesn’t ALL become gift? 

For He might not have.

“Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.”

Faith is the seeking God in everything, it’s about the inner eye, it’s about the open heart that accepts and sees the good.

“Their [the cherubim] entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes.” Ezekiel 10:12

“Moses kept right on going because he kept his eyes on the one who is invisible.” Hebrews 11:27

All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness. Isn’t this the point of the gospel? The good news that all those living in the shadow of death have been birthed into new life, that the transfiguration of a suffering world has already begun. That suffering nourishes grace, and pain and joy are arteries of the same heart – and mourning and dancing are but movements in His unfinished song of beauty. Can we believe the gospel, that God is patiently transfiguring all the notes of our lives into the song of His Son?

So take the pain that is given, give thanks for it, and transform it into a joy that fulfills all the emptiness.

“Faith is the gaze of a soul upon a saving God.”

Pay attention, open your eyes, offer your heart, bring thanks and let God transform. He knows the big plan, the whole picture, the way He has prepared for you, and one day you will see how “the Lord your God has carried you, like a father carries his son, all the way to this place.” Deuteronomy 1:31.