to live fully.

I have been reading a really good book the past few months.  I am reading it slowly, because it is rich and good.. and I want to enjoy every page.  It's called "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp and on the top of the cover page it says: A dare to live LIVE FULLY right where you are.

I have really enjoyed reading her book and I think God has used it to remind me of how to experience Him in the everyday, mundane details of life.  God takes her on a journey to learn how to thank God for everything, and in that thanks to Him, experience joy and life to the fullest.  

She puts a quote I love from C.S Lewis' "Weight of Glory" (which I have not read).

"What more, you may ask, do we want?  Ah, but we want so much more- something the books on aesthetics take little notice of.  But the poets and mythologies know all about it.  We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough.  We want something else which can hardly be put into words-to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it."  

I find that I want this beauty.  And I seek this beauty.  Even in things, like a nursery.  Our yard.  Our house.  I want things to be beautiful and pleasing to the eye.  I think God has put that in us.  In this broken world, as His daughter, I long for order in chaos, and brokenness to be made whole.  Even in something silly like, not wanting weeds in our yard.  

But I want more and I want deeper beauty.  I want to see the Lord's beauty and goodness in all things. 

I find it really hard to see God's beauty and goodness when I see kids abused emotionally and physically, kids without parents, my dad with mental illness, Reed with a disease that cannot be cured (juvenile diabetes)... 

I have to stop, be still, and remember who God is.  That He is loving.  That He is good.  That He redeems.  That His power is more than I will ever understand fully here on Earth. That He is compassionate.

So today.. I want to be "united with beauty" as I sit here, do the dishes, drive, teach little children.  I want to live the way Jesus shows us and tells us, that we too can live fully.