In the early morning quiet I am the only one under our roof who is awake.
I sit with the laptop warming my knees and hear the various songs of the dawns chorus by the early birds that says good morning to me. This is my favorite time of day.
The sky lightens with every minutes passing, the shadows appear and become more distinct, then fade as the light takes over the places of shadows.
My beast greats me each morning at the door of my bedroom with one joyous, hope-filled open eye staring up, communicating, “can I pee now?” When I open the door for her, I am greeted with the gift of fresh, crisp, clean air. My lungs inhale it’s newness with no conscious thought from me.
As I take in that first breath of morning air I sense that now I am awake, now I am alive from the inside out.
I smell the dampness in the air that the morning dew creates, I smell the creation that is green and purple, and blue and red and yellow… the flowers of my garden. I see the creation that is green and purple and blue and red and yellow … the flowers of His garden.
It is here, each and every morning that I step out onto the deck that I am confronted with His garden, His creation, His abilities, His greatness. It is here, each and every morning that all that He has created reminds me that He also created me. That He is bigger than me. That He can make beauty from dirt from nothing. It is here that I am reminded that, if I hand my problems, my struggles, my heartaches and my to do list over to Him, He will make beauty from my dirt, from nothing. He reminds me that if I take the whole of my life, even my body, and there in the alter of His garden, lay it all out for Him to do as He wills, as an act of sacrifice, He will take it, He will redeem the life I have, and make it something better than I ever could … something new.
Then I inhale a new scent, and I look down to see my beast, content that her ‘job’ is done, ready to move on to the intake of food. And I am reminded that signs of life are not always sweet. Sometimes signs of life are truly crappy. Sometimes signs of life are downright shitty.
Death can be one of those sour signs of life. Or illness, or pain, or stress, or struggle, or disappointment, or bills, or divorce, or a failed test, or broken trust. We feel the weight that those signs of life, through no conscious choice of our own to feel them. As we take in those sour signs of life we sense that we are awake, that we are alive from the inside out. Sometimes these more sour events and seasons in our lives make us feel alive … and wish it were not so.
They are indeed signs of life. And they remind us that life is not just the life we have here, now, today, but that there is a life beyond all time and space. A life where every breath is like that first morning uncontrolled inhaling of fresh created air. A life where we will not just have the created to woo us awake, and to marvel at with all of our sense, but also the Creator who will turn our mourning into dancing.
itsawonderfilledlife 