Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Brown gem

A few weeks ago I stood in the front yard in the afternoon, dead-heading the roses and royally beating myself up. Doubts and criticisms swirled in my head. "I'm twenty-five and still living at home. I graduated college, got my degree, and now work in a coffee shop. What am I doing with my life?" Memories of voices told me, "You have so much potential...and what are you doing with it?"

"When am I going to be more independent?"
"Why am I not 'there' yet?"
"My brother just graduated, lives on his own, has a well-paying full-time job that is helping him go to grad school. Why can't I be more like him?"
"What's taking me so long?"
"What's wrong with me?"
"Why am I such a loser?"

My despair grew as I plucked off the dead flower heads. I felt absolutely lost. I felt like crying in my lostness and at the pinnacle of it, I looked to my right. There, suspended in mid-air was a hummingbird. Not a flying gem of a male, but a more subdued female. She was absolutely beautiful. The minute detail to her body was incredible and she also busied herself with the roses before us. She didn't need to be colorful or flashy to hold beauty or have purpose. Her beauty came from her mere existence. I felt as though God had sent her as an encouragement just for me. In the midst of me fighting, God decided to speak to my heart by showing me something beautiful.

I couldn't place words to it (and even now, my doing so is a stretch), but I felt my heart quiet into peace in the moments while she hovered - finally zipping away into the sky. Somehow, her presence let me know that everything was okay.

Saturday, July 9, 2011

"Feed the birds..."

I love it when I see God providing for me in small ways that carry deep meaning...

I've had what I refer to as a "tight budget" lately. I've been combating stress over it and striving to "cast it upon" God, as 1 Peter 5:7 says to do. (The context of this verse is that of suffering, but I am captured by the idea of "casting" my cares upon Christ - as opposed to simply "dropping them" or "handing them over." "Cast" has a force behind it which makes it hard to retrieve.)

God reminds me of His faithfulness. Praise Him for it - I need the reminders:
This week I didn't have to buy lunch even once. I didn't go hungry either. Food was provided to me for free in ways that I didn't expect. What a wonderful surprise!

Jesus' words delightfully penetrated my thoughts at the end of this week. The reminder in my brain was a paraphrase, but here is the verse itself: "Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!" (Luke 12:24).

As I face the stress of moving out, transferring to a new job, starting back up with school, and wondering how in the world I'm going to afford/manage my "new" life, I am comforted with a relationship with a God who keeps track even of the sparrows...and cares for me so much more.
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