Just sharing some photos (click to enlarge) I recently found that put a smile on my face. The first is a photo of Paris street performers, Jean Louis Bert and Grethe Bulow, playing leap-frog in front of the Eiffel Tower, which is perfect. The second is just a lovely travel photo, though I’m not sure where it’s from. In the third, I just love the whole composition. This is my state of mind lately.
Keys. They open doors and they close them. I’m discovering that we’re each given a set of keys throughout our lifetime. All we’re able to see before each of our doors are open is the space through the keyhole, yet we can’t exactly make out what lies on the other side of the door. Each door we unlock has different opportunities that are awaiting us.
I’m still in the process of figuring out which keys to use, which doors they belong to, and exactly when they’re supposed to be used. I’ve been presented with so many different directional options since I’ve been home for the summer, and I can’t quite wrap my mind around which one I need to take.
There’s so much beauty in everything that hasn’t fully been captured yet…so many people unmet and lives untouched, pieces yet to be composed, photographs to be taken, dances to be danced, paintings to be painted, places unseen, and discoveries still unmade. I want to make those discoveries and create all of those things and at the moment I’m not quite sure how to go about making it happen. I guess I shouldn’t wonder about it quite so much, but I do want to make the right decisions and at the right time.
I’m so thankful that I’m not the One holding my keys and that I didn’t create my own doors and what’s behind them. Maybe that little space through the keyhole is all I really need to see at the moment and maybe the right doors will open and the right keys will be found for each one in their own time. It’s taking a lot of trust, but I know it’ll be worth it. For now, all I can do is use the tools I’ve been given to create for the One who created me and those keys will find their own little keyholes in due time.
Colossians 1:16
For by Him all things were created: things in Heaven and on Earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by Him and for Him.
Awake
Awaken me by the sea
Amidst the drift of summer air
Where thoughts in my mind are free
A morning without care
Awaken me by the sea
With a saltwater scented breeze
Where the light of dawn
Peeks through the trees
Awaken me by the sea
Where the waves glide in
Showing life is good to me
Each time a new day begins
One in a million #destiny #purpose (Taken with instagram)
"Being tender and open is beautiful. As a woman, I feel continually shhh’ed. Too sensitive. Too mushy. Too wishy washy. Blah blah. Don’t let someone steal your tenderness. Don’t allow the coldness and fear of others to tarnish your perfectly vulnerable beating heart. Nothing is more powerful than allowing yourself to truly be affected by things. Whether it’s a song, a stranger, a mountain, a rain drop, a tea kettle, an article, a sentence, a footstep, feel it all – look around you. All of this is for you. Take it and have gratitude. Give it and feel love."
Zooey Deschanel
(Source: sugar-and-heartbreak, via ezerkenegdo)
Treasure hunting through records while antiquing with Mark and Kelsie yesterday (Taken with instagram)
"An identity is not to be found on the surface; it is not accessible to the poll-taker; it is not something that can become a cliche. It is not made from the mean average or the typical, but from the hidden and often the most extreme. It is not made from what passes, but from those qualities that endure, regardless of what passes, because they are related to truth. It lies very deep. In its entirety, it is known only to God, but of those who look for it, none gets so close as the artist."
Flannery O’Connor
You’ve got mail.
Just some thoughts…
When something or someone is broken, our first thoughts are they need to be fixed…our “we need to fix this” thought tends to be the first to pop into our minds. Really though, when you think about it, we need to be healed - not fixed. When something is fixed, it’s “patched up” to be as good as new. When someone is healed they aren’t “patched up” they’re made new…we become complete and even stronger than we were before. Instead of being new as though we’d never been broken in the first place, we become new in the sense that we are given the gift of continuing mercy and grace even though we run into some bumps along the way. We become new in that we have had these experiences but we are still being molded and shaped into the person we were created to be.
Brokenness that is fixed, is patched or sewn up. It can easily crack, tear, or be chipped away at again. Basically, being fixed is only temporary. Brokenness that is healed, is completely new. Though it often includes a scar, healing that surrounds brokenness is forever. Sure, it can be chipped at, but there is a wrapping that is stronger than the attempt to chip away the new. This is a wrapping of mercy, grace, and unconditional love from a Father who holds our world in His very hands. No matter how much we trip, stumble, fall, and completely crash through our story, that never-ending grace is there to catch us.
I’m so thankful for the ability to be caught…to let go of what I’m feeling and free-fall into the hands of an incredible God…to be able to set my focus and my gaze on Him, and watch Him rejuvenate my heart one beat at a time.
