Today I prayed for God to show me something beautiful because I’m so weary of brokenness. And He did, but before I share with you this beauty that took my breath away, I want to share about brokenness.
Since I set out barefoot with God on a quest to find beauty at the beginning of this year, I’ve come across so much brokenness.
DEATH
and
DIVORCE
and
SICKNESS
and
SIN.
People I love hurting. Really hurting. Hurting themselves. Hurting others. Hurting me. My heart aching with all the sadness in this world.
So much of this sadness due to selfishness.
SELFISHNESS.
Sel~Fish~ness.
Trying to understand, I break this word down and find “fish” in it. And this speaks to me because fishing brings out the selfishness in me.
You see, I prefer to fish alone.
In the quiet.
In the peace.
With the beauty of nature all around me.
Yet, yesterday, I went fishing on the river with my dad and three of my boys. The little ones, Redbull, JoJo Bug, and G2.
I love to fish.
Especially on the river.
In a warm breeze.
With the cottonwoods singing on the banks.
But yesterday I couldn’t hear the cottonwoods. Three little boys with ants in their pants asked me a boatload of questions.
“Can I have a hook? Can I have some bait? Can I have a drink? I can I have some food? Can I take my life vest off? Can I take my life vest off? I’m hot in this boat, can I take my life vest off?” Two of them still coughing from months of sickness at our house.
And then G2 fell asleep in my lap. For hours, I held a beat up umbrella in one hand to keep Blondie in the shade while he napped across my knees. My sweet, little, sweaty, four-year-old still pale from the flu.
My neck and shoulder hurt so bad last night from holding that umbrella up that I couldn’t eat Sunday dinner. And I didn’t catch a fish. All I caught was a pain in the neck.
But Redbull caught three fish.
And Of course the big one got away.
We even had Redbull’s big one on the stringer
tied to the side of the boat
and it still got away.
Life seems to be this way right now
A pain in the neck
The big one that got away
Perhaps it’s always this way…
But here’s the catch
the beautiful catch ~
This evening browsing on facebook before I settled down to blog, I found the following video. I rarely click on these videos, but because the singer was blind, I clicked it. It was the singer’s brokenness that drew me to her. Her blindness. But once she began to sing, I realized I was the blind one. God showing me breathtaking beauty through the lens of brokenness.