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Written on April 22, 2011 by emily

Keep it simple. Easy to do? Not for me. Everything is always complicated. Tangled. Gut-wrenching. Even the uneventful days leave me feeling tossed and torn when all I want is joy. To be steadfast. Constant. Unwavering. But when I look in, I waver. I withdraw and sink lower in my troubles. If I look out, I feel even worse. Comparing oranges to oranges doesn’t get you very far especially when the oranges you already have are much more than you deserve. Comparison is not a woman’s friend. All it gives is more of the discontentment I try to dig out. But if I look up…the glory can swallow me up and wonder can fill up the cavernous space inside. Swallow me whole, please, Glorious One. I rather like my limbs.

A shift is happening. A settling and surrender. I’ve spent the last week washing the walls of my home. That’s newsworthy in itself, since I haven’t ever done that task in my life. In all my scrubbing, I think of smudges and how much they scare me. Not the wall smudges…those are no match for the magical Magic Eraser. But the life-smudges. The things that have happened, or might happen, that are irreversible or out of my control. I’m quite aware that I’m a speck, and there are innumerable things that could send my little speck flying into the black abyss. Where is my comfort? Where is my certainty? Not within myself, for sure. Inside the will of the Lord, there is safety. Sometimes the smudges (or possible smudges) we see are His strokes on an incomplete masterpiece. His canvases are always full of color and good things. And even when the smudges are not His, He has a way of making them beautiful or washing them clean, much like my walls. Some things are not for me to know right now, but I am always invited to know HIM. To be with Him. To wait for Him. To worship Him. And so I shall, with open eyes and heart, wait for the wonder He will make of my smudges.

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