My office window faces my neighborhood street. If I look past the two elm trees immediately in front of the window, I can see the flowers I planted with Bethany, Jonathan, and Virginia last fall: pansies, ranunculus, beloved daffodils, and more I don’t know the names of. I can see the blue bonnets and the clear white and deep, velvety purple irises planted by the precious previous owner of this house.

As I’ve sat here working the last couple of weeks, I’ve noticed the little toddler on his push bike accompanied by his mom holding his younger sister. They walk past about three or four times a day. There is tender beauty in his big smile and innocent exuberance (as he waved at the horse trailer last week as we drove past him). I’ve noticed the older lady shuffle by, her aged pup following behind. (I shall pick a flower for her today, when I see her.) Just now, there is a dad pulling his two girls in pink in their red Flyer wagon. He smiles and waves at the mom passing the other direction with her ginger-headed kiddo in hand. Earlier this morning, a young boy about ten wearing a Tigger suit bounced past the house.

I woke up this morning (more) burdened. Stressed. Grieving(?). Irritable. Frustrated. But then I looked out the office window and was given the grace to make note of what I’ve been privileged to see this morning and over the past couple of weeks.

So in these (temporary?) trying times, let us be diligent to look for and see the simple, deep beauty out our “front office windows”. For the beauty that is there has always been there and will continue to be there. We’re getting to see it more because we’ve stopped, we’ve slowed down, we’re looking out the window (albeit as we sit on long conference calls).

Oh, that this beauty, this (forced?) pause, this strange time would call me to drop my cares at His feet and rest in the Truth that He who made all these beautiful things I’m seeing out my office window also holds the whole world in His hands.

Walking alone in DC

Wondering if you see me

Or hear me

Your word says you do

What is this life path

You have me on

Am I in your will

I pray I am

Questions I cannot answer

Wearying work that

Brings me to the end of myself

Do you understand

Forty years on this earth

This strange path

Will it bring me to eternity

With You

Sight, touch, thought

Future, past, faith

Are you real?

Your word says you are

Bring me home, Lord

Where my dim path

Will become bright

And my feeble faith

Made sight

On the hard days

I look around and

see His grace in

small things of

kindness and beauty;

with His eyes I see

these gifts of mercy

and grace; if you

look, you will see

them too.

Dinner with dear family friends last night reminded me to look up and be hopeful. Life is hard and steep and painful and beautiful. I am thankful for friends who listen to my heart and embrace my words at face value and with understanding. It was a glimpse of Heaven and a touch of the Father’s love.

I am being guarded

by God’s power

through faith

for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time

I Peter 1:5

Familiar trail

Peace surrounding the trial

Light covering dark

To say I struggled with my attitude today at work today is an understatement. I was supposed to head home on a flight this afternoon, but could not due to an unforeseen work commitment. So now I have a 5:30am flight, and therefore a 3:30am wake up. Nice.

Because of this unforeseen work commitment, I also didn’t leave the office until about 8:30pm tonight, and that makes for a 13 hour day, as my first meeting this morning was at 7:30am. Woe is me.

As I drove down to the hotel tonight, I started thinking about some of the Scriptures I’ve been reading lately. Things like:

• my help comes from the Lord
• the Lord sent me
• lay aside every sin and weight
• he who began a good work in you will complete it
• be still before the Lord
• we who by God’s power are being guarded
• share in suffering
• God tested him
• He is the God who sees
• He has redeemed my soul
• He who testifies for me is on high
• the Lord sustained me
• the Lord will keep you
• suffering according to God’s will
• the Lord upholds all who are falling
• He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds

I could keep going.

I get caught up in the brokenness of the world. Daily life that is just hard. You get the crap kicked out of you. There is constant strife and chaos. The printer won’t work. The customer yelled at me. I missed the stairs in my sister’s cabin and seriously sprained my ankle (it’s propped up right now with an ice pack over it). I took my skis all the way to AZ (via two trips to DC), only to arrive to no snow. Feels like I’m never home, working a job that doesn’t pay enough. My to do list at work sprouts three new items for every one I complete. I have a middle seat on the longest leg of my journey home tomorrow.

From this hotel-room-leg-propped-up vantage point, I am reminded that His words for us written and given to us in the context of this hard life. He knows we need to know that He sees us. He knows we need to know our present suffering is for a purpose and won’t last forever. He knows we need to hear that He will heal us, sustain us, keep us, redeem us, help us, send us, testify for us, rescue us. He gives these words to sustain us on this journey through this broken world.

So, in spite of my terrible attitude today, may I remember these truths tomorrow through 3:30am wake ups and three-hour-middle-seat flights.

to make sense of a theological (at least) divide in my immediate family. So I picked up a book called Are We Together? by RC Sproul, a Calvinist. I don’t consider myself a Calvinist, but I do hope this small but dense book guides me to a few answers. 

Through this recent division, I have realized my own spiritual and theological laziness and how ill-prepared and ill-equipped I am for defending the Gospel and why I believe what I do. 

I doubt that I will find comfort in these words, but I do expect to find strength and direction from them.