There is no exceptionally interesting story here. When I knew I was going to be launching a new blog, and was going with a complete redesign, I just started to think. What matters to me? Why do I write? What do I write about? How do I view the world?
And the answers were fairly simple: life is hard. It's full of heartache and loss and fear and betrayal and persecution and worry. It's full of thistles. Full of weedy little plants with spiny, prickly leaves.
BUT.
Life is also full of beauty. Unmatched, breathtaking beauty.
I have always seen beauty all around me. I see beauty in painted sunset skies, and the sticky kisses of a baby boy. I recognize it in the joy-filled eyes of a declining patient in the hospital. I discover it in the authentic sharing of stories.
Because the truth is this: there is treasure, there is gold, in every season of our lives.
Sometimes, it just takes a shift in perspective to notice it. A new lens. A straight up dose of gratitude.
Giving thanks is profoundly life giving. It's the quickest, easiest, simplest way to find a gold mine while walking through fields of weeds.
Joy is a product of gratitude. and gratitude is a product of perspective. We can change our whole lives. We just have to change the way we see.
Want to know my favorite thing about the thistle? The weed that seems to hurt and poke and bother?
There's treasure IN IT.
| "The stem of the thistle grows about 2 feet high, is reddish, slender, very much branched and scarcely able to keep upright under the weight of its leaves. The leaves are long, narrow, clasping the dull green stem, with prominent pale veins, the irregular teeth of the wavy margin ending in spines. The flowers are pale yellow, hidden in the green prickly heads, each scale of the involucre, or covering of the head, ending also in a long, brown bristle. The whole plant, leaves, stalks and also the flowerheads, are covered with a thin down. It grows more compactly in some soils than in others." |
Yeah. Did you catch that? There's a flower inside the weed. Inside the weed. It's just hidden.
I don't know what the thistles are in your life. But I bet if you peeled back the prickly leaves and tilted your head a bit, you'd find the flower.
Choosing to be aware of blessing, seeing beauty in the mundane, documenting the abundance of gifts- it's a privilege. It is so freeing.
Why miss our lives?
Why miss all the ways He loves?
I want to be here. awake to His crazy grace.
So I'm choosing to dig for gold. Every day.
I'll dig for gold while I'm deep in the throes of nursing school and I feel like giving up. I'll dig for gold when I hear the lies. I'll dig for gold when I'm tired of the fight. I'll dig for gold when the to-do list is fifty miles long. I'll dig for gold when I'm discouraged, fearful, or hurt.
I'll dig. I will find treasure.
... and then I'll write about it. I'll write about the beauty that Jesus has made known to me.
I'm choosing to keep my ears open and my eyes wide to the miraculous riches.
Wherever you are today, I pray that you would rest sweetly in the perfection of His lavish, extraordinary love for you. I pray that you would identify the richness of your life, collect His treasure, and count it all as joy.
I pray that you would find gold in the thistles.
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