if only I could really see

I've been pondering the word perspective.  A word I've studied for a while.  It's often a matter of known need, and also a matter quite elusive.  So often I find myself crying out to God, "Show me how to look at this!"  And His often- response is, "In light of forever, does this qualify your reaction?" 

And isn't it like our Lord to answer with another question?

Of course not, Father.  Once again, I'm blowing this out of proportion like blowing up a cockroach with a grenade.


"Life, lovely while it lasts, is soon over.
Life as we know it, precious and beautiful, ends.
The body is put back in the same ground it came from.
The spirit returns to God, who first breathed it." 
                   -Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 (Msg)

I'm learning every day how gratitude on purpose can change my perspective to really see that life is indeed a lovely series of gifts.  And also learning how this deliberate seeing, looking can help me hold the moment for all it is.  I'm nothing more than a broken vessel needing His filling regardless of what circumstance invades.  And yet ...

As big as this moment is, it's still only dust in the wind of eternity.

What matters. What really matters ... It's only what He's doing in me, through me, around me that extends like an invisible, internal scar invading into eternity.  It's only that which lasts.

"So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever." -2 Corinthians 4:16-18 (Msg)

Where is His presence? His eternal Self, come into my being?  And what is He doing there in me?  Can I use these spiritual eyes, awakened now to see?  Yes - I can and I do.  When I sing. When I slow.  When I listen.  When I thank.

Here are a few of my forever lines - that by which God has reached through time to show me His love, and in which I am filled and touched and drawn into more of His grace:

- Your comfort and healing for when my body and cells are sick, infected, sore ... and for when my heart is too

- a starry night, and reminder of Your power there in the sky

- sunlight and blue skies today and this gift of the calm before the storm

- Ecclesiastes 11:7 - yes, Your light is sweet

- "For those who can see, the world's beauty outweighs its burdens, its grace greater than its grime." -Ann Voskamp

- pure white untouched beauty of the snowfall

- that this physical pain is causing me to depend on You more today

- that You care about my feelings but You don't hold them against me

- for blessing me with such a talented daughter, and for blessing her with such confidence

- this song "Gracious fury - written in my Savior's scars.  Mercy, mercy - now engraved upon my heart."

- the family together and echoing laughter 

Lord - I'm so thankful for vision.  Your sight to see as it really is.  What is fleeting to be known by my heart as fleeting.  What is eternal - realized as such.  Why do I get them so turned around?  Confession.  I've been wrong.  My trials - not meant for focus, but blurred background.  My gifts of grace - these are what deserves the crispness of my heart's lens.  Jesus, please make it so.  Here is my focus knob - You may keep it.  Show me today once again how to really see.


And, since it is technically Friday - how about a vocabulary word and writing prompt?

emanant - emanating or issuing from or as if from a source

Freewrite for 15 minutes about a time you were mistaken about what you saw, or a time when you observed another person react from a mistaken perspective.

Happy writing, and I hope your weekend is full of His presence and the realization of His many gifts of love!