Listen...Watch...See

The clouds were thick, heavy in density.  They moved in slow motion with the gentle breeze of the winds.  Unveiled in a sliver of orange was the glow of a majestic moon hanging just for me.  Beckoning me to listen, watch, see.  A pause of all that was otherwise clattering inside me...so as to hear something hopeful.  Watch something miraculous.  See something unfold.  Unfold inside of me. 


The moment for which I watched began to reveal more than I had time for in the moment.  For my baby boy, was needing to get to bed.  My dog was waiting for me to throw the ball just one more time.  My heart was longing for more solitude.  Why?  Sometimes, solitude can feel like lonliness, where other times it is the one gift we long for. 


In moments of solitude, there is a speaking.  If, we let what we might be beholding in that moment; speak. 


In that particular moment; the speaking would come later, once my baby was sleeping.  My husband was off to work.  The dog was laying down at my side, twitching as he dreamed.  And the open patio door was the gateway to a song of crickets quieting my soul enough to allow the unfolding to begin.


I see the picture again. That moment etched in my minds eye, just a few hours earlier.  I recall for that moment, watching and wondering, were the clouds moving, or was the moon pressing it's way through the clouds.  Though scientifically speaking I know that the clouds were unveiling the slow slivers of the moon for me....it felt like the moon was instead pressing it's way through the clouds.  For while they were so thick, and charcoal grey, a moon was brilliant orange with a purpose to display the glorious artwork of our creator. 

It moved me to reflect on how sometimes we ourself, want desperately to push our way through the grey.  We might finally feel like something of a miraculous brilliance has rested on us, and we want the world to see.  It might be a moment with our little ones.

It might be an encounter with another's soul....

a moment of chemistry that makes us feel alive again... 

Hopeful again. 

No longer alone.  A spoken word to a part of us

 that like the desert ground,


 dry, parched,.... is now watered.  

 The rose on the thorns of our life awakened to a hope for something more.  A courage to press through.


Have you ever pressed so hard to reveal a part of who you are so as to have something of a shining moment?  A moment where amidst the grey clouds of circumstance, a brilliance comes forth in the night sky's of your life, revealing a strength in you, you yourself had no knowledge of?


Then as the crickets continue their chorus, I listened....stillness, solitude...and everything that is truly important to hear, comes forth in a chorus, quieting the chaos.  I reflect on them clouds, slowly moving in a way that only they can move.  Shadow and stretching over top the moon in a stripping away that seems unfairly vulnerable.  The moon hangs still.  It controls not the movement of the winds, and how the clouds strategically reveal it's majesty. 


Isn't it like life to do the same.  Moments when the winds of circumstance blow as they may....revealing what we may fear to be revealed?  Making vulnerable for all to see the shape of our souls?  A sliver sometimes.  Half of this, half of that.....and sometimes a full body shot of all that is surrounding us and within us?  Life, it takes sometimes no caution as to what it will blow in, blow out, or blow around us....the winds don't ask us, how hard to blow, or how gentle to drop by....they just enter our life and do what they were meant to do. 

 

What do the winds over the landscapes of our lives do for us?  We can stand against them.  Fight the intent they may have to break off of us, branches needing broken.  Or we can lean into them, and embrace them....letting them carry off of us, brokenness that otherwise would never be broken off.  Renew us with something that frees us, ...allowing us to fly to heights never otherwise flown. 

Personally, I love the wind....since I was a little girl, I would watch....listen, and stand with my long hair hugging it gracefully.  I to this day, can still hear the wind moving through the leaves of the trees, as if to applaud our Lord for His glorious creation of the Sapphire blue sky, while sitting on the wooden swing in the Northwoods of my home growing up.  If only I could hug the winds of life as gracefully, applauding life in a way that says thank you for the gifts I've still yet to see. 

There is a gift we cannot see though, when we close our eyes to that which we take for granted.  When we see God in creation, we often see something of His Kingdom.  Something even His son Jesus spent much time using to illustrate The Kingdom of Heaven, creation.  Whether in a moment beneath a brilliant orange moon, and a sky hung with grey clouds moving ever so slowly....or in a moment with my little boy, or my dog.....creation is always a window to the eternal.  Will we listen?  Will we watch?  Will we see.....the windows all around us.


Listen.  Watch.  See.