Sunday, May 23, 2010

Red Bird, Red Bird, What do you see?

The house is silent at 1 in the afternoon, everyone is sleeping. There is a beautiful cardinal just outside my kitchen window and I sit here typing what I hope comes out clearly.

I've been reading, thinking, praying about my life. I always do, but differently as of late in lieu of the ways I've been influenced through books, people, lives lived differently than mine. I want to be a "good steward" of all of these blessings, but not JUST that, I want to live boldly, for every aspect of my life to speak some kind of truth.

We planted a small garden to save money on produce, we are preparing some barrels for rain collection to reuse the gift of water from above rather than wasting it, we are composting. I love doing these things, but this passion wells up inside of me to do more. To stop buying grocery store produce all together, to buy from a local CSA and take one little step with our little lives to speak up against the millions of dollars and gallons of gas wasted to ship produce all over the country when real people living on real farms raising real families can provide us with more than we need. Gas and oil that travels to us on the backs and coffins of people from far away who don't want war, soldiers who are created in God's image and suffer greatly at the ends of their rifles. I'm no anti-war activist, I applaud soldier's for standing up for something they believe in, we should all do that a little more...but I just believe there must be a better way.

I LOVE clothes, fashion, dressing nice, looking feminine and eclectic. I feel guilt in buying those things, I feel like that $40 could have gone to something better, could support another child through Compassion or be used to make a meal for a family going through a hard time. What if I learned how to make all of the things I love from something else? What if your old sheets and curtains became my next couture? But then I get a whiff of fear that I would be turn inwardly on myself and my family too much, that I would spend too much time providing for us and lose sight of serving and giving to others. Where is the balance? Oh Lord, show me the balance!

I have this best friend that I've know since I was 16. She married my husband's brother. She's pregnant now with my nephew. I write those short, simple, poetic sentences and realize how BIG God's picture is. In a few months I will hold this new, tiny little baby boy and cry tears of joy and thanks and remember that He had him in mind all these years. Oh how GREAT thou art. How GREAT THOU ART.

How can I make my life matter even more than it matters today? Can I live a life that shows my children truth and beauty in such overwhelming ways that choosing the broad path is scarcely an option? Will praying for them, home schooling them, loving them and showing them a balance of grace and discipline be what does it? Family dinners and knowing that mommy and daddy are going to be together forever? Probably not. They are people with free will and I can only choose to trust God at his word, and do my best. Whatever that means for each day.

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