When Worry Wastes Beauty

The springtime sun revealed the sad state of our yard this weekend.  And while my husband mowed the lawn for the first time this year, I tried to be thankful for the abilities that are still mine, and enjoy the small containers that I had filled with pansies.  They were my Mom's favorite spring flowers, after all.


But not too many minutes later, I heard myself bemoaning the fact that I could not rake and trim and spend the entire day working like I used to do.  Where only moments before I saw the beauty, now I could only see the tasks still left undone.

Please don't tell me I'm alone in this? Am I the only one who can so easily fall off of the Thankfulness Wagon?

So, when my head hit the pillow, several hours later, I was reminded once again, where my heart condition had become derailed. I heard the voice of my Lord stirring in my heart: 

Will all your worries add a single moment to your life?

And why worry about your clothes? Look at the field lilies! They don’t worry about theirs.

Matthew 6:27-28 TLB 




There is so much beauty all around--free for the taking! We wait all winter for spring, but then rush past its beauty on our way to the next task, the next season.

 

 Beautiful Moments

Worry is a curse

Blinders causing me to miss

Beauty in my day 
  --BG







I have so much to see in this small garden that I've been given. And while I cannot do all of the things I wish I could, I can pause, remove the blinders, and peer into this life of mine. 



The garden that is my heart, 
would sing with a beauty all it's own, 
a tune of springtime and life renewed,
if I could hear the music
being sung to my soul.

A song of daffodils and pansies
of robins and finches,
A song of Love sent
from a God who cares
And dreamed all of this
for hearts to receive. 

 







This #Haiku #Poetry was offered for the challenge put out by Ronovan over at his site:  Ronovan Writes
where the prompts this week are "Beautiful&Curse."
Join me there to see a great list of other Haiku.


I am linking today with:
Meg Weyerbacher, #TeaAndWordTuesday 
Jennifer Dukes Lee, #TellHisStory 
 

   

Spring Breath

This is the time of year when my hopes get the best of me. A sunny day suddenly appears, and all thoughts of snow and winter are far behind. Even if the temperature is all over the place, it's the first day of Spring, after all!

Do you see springtime in the blue sky also?

This week when my husband and I drove over to our favorite spot by the lake, I needed to feel the breeze on my face. So my ever-present winter hat came off for a minute, and the scene before me called out the spring in my heart: 

Wisp of Sky

The sky breeze calls soft

Fluffy streak of vapor float

Wisp and blow aloft

 

My mind can feel like the fluff of vapor, flitting and floating to places not planned by me.  But maybe the floating has a purpose. What if there are new thoughts that God wants to birth in me? What if springtime is meant to come to my heart?
 

 

 

Life Calls

Spring breeze awaken

Blow over cold barren land

Stir my heart to live 

 

"This is what God the Lord says—
the Creator of the heavens, who stretches them out,
    who spreads out the earth with all that springs from it,
    who gives breath to its people,
    and life to those who walk on it"

Isaiah 42:5 NIV 

My days are not aimlessly floating, without purpose, this I know. His plans for me are moving along in a timing set by Him. He breathes His Life into me,

and He will breathe new life into

you

if you can look up to the sky

and see His Love written there.

These words were written in response to the #Haiku #Poetry prompt over at Ronovan Hester's site

Ronovan Writes 

where the words this week are "Breeze&Blow."

Won't you visit and find so many great poems there? 




I am linking this week with: 
 
 Meg Weyerbacher, #TeaAndWordTuesday

Jennifer Dukes Lee: #TellHIsStory 
 

"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."

--Albert Camus 

 

Standing outside, feeling the sun warm my winter-weary soul today, I almost cried as I tasted the air of spring on my tongue.  

What does winter taste like?  I never realized that I would settle in to the place of dreary and grey and count it as normal.  In the past, Spring seemed always to wait around the bend for me.  A Gardener with Hope-for-the-Sun, that was me.  But when fatigue rules the mind, then spring flutters itself away to a corner where it cannot be found, or even dreamed.

I placed the walls around my heart, even as the stiffness walled in my muscles.  And yet, somehow, Spring does come.  And my heart is caught unaware, in this place of walls and dim lighting and cold.  Have you been in that place?  Pain can do that to a person: make them hunch and cower and run for cover.  Jesus says that He causes the weary one to rejoice, but where is the music when the room is silent?

  Psalm 18:16-19
16 He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    he drew me out of deep waters.
¹⁷ He rescued me from my powerful enemy,
    from my foes, who were too strong for me.
¹⁸ They confronted me in the day of my disaster,
    but the Lord was my support.
¹⁹ He brought me out into a spacious place;
    he rescued me because he delighted in me.

That Spacious Place?  That Room filled with music?  That Taste of Spring? It has become my heart filled up with HIM; because He, the Lord, delights in me.   Pain or Fatigue or Weakness or Shame cannot stop His Delighting, because HE DELIGHTS TO RESCUE.

Oh, What a Thought!  Jesus delights in me, and He delights in you, too, my friend.







Once again, I am linking up over at The Faith Barista, with her book, Finding Spiritual Whitespace, where I am learning to find REST for my soul.

She speaks about a heart walled-off from the pain of the past. But what if the pain in the present is where the Heart-Walls are?  

Jesus delights to rescue me in that place of pain, and He will rescue you.  However grey or dim your days, Spring will come.