Every day, we have the opportunity to observe and be blessed by the wonders of our world.
These wonders and blessings come in the promise of a warm spring morning, or as a refreshing, gentle summer rain. They are found in silent, falling snowflakes that shimmer like diamonds in the winter sun.
Who hasn’t felt blessed by a cooling summer’s rain or been touched by the quiet serenity of an earth blanketed in mounds and mounds of downy snow? And who hasn’t experienced the deep, enduring and gentle peace that comes from looking over a countryside bathed in the light of a full moon. And what person hasn’t marveled at stars so dazzling and vivid it seems we could reach up and touch them.
At such times, nature is silenced and time suspended.
And yet, the snow is only frozen water, and the sun, moon and stars are nothing more than hardened, desolate, uninhabitable rocks and dangerous gasses.
What transforms these unattractive objects into things of beauty? And what happens to change the mundane of everyday events into things of beauty, miracles and blessings?
When I allow my mind to become quiet and still, I not only see the beauty of our world and universe, but experience it on a deep, penetrating, healing level.
God reveals Himself to us in these timeless acts that occur every day.
The mystery of life is constantly unfolding around us from the green shoot pushing up through the dirt to the developing baby spiders clinging precariously to the edge of their web. We brush them aside as a nuisance before we have had time to consider what it would be like without them.
I am humbled by the power of God witnessed in storms that lash out in gale force winds. But at the time I do not consider them blessings. Yet, it is through storms that the earth is swept clean and renewal occurs. If we take time to observe the awesome power and beauty of God in nature, would we be able to recognize that same awesome power in our personal lives as well?
Marlene Anderson