See Something More

I’ve never seen that color red before. It exists only on the pallet of the Great Artist God when he paints the sunsets. It exploded across the sky like beams of fiery light, a red so intense and deep that no camera or painter could capture or remake it. It drew out a profound purple in the waves of clouds, and it was like the sun was catching all the right edges of the clouds to create a sunset that took over the whole sky.  I watched it all unfold before me like a show from heaven. The only problem was that I was getting a crick in my neck from being turned around in the back seat of the car. This kind of sunset you can’t watch in the rear view mirror; you’ve gotta turn around and stare at it.  “Too bad we aren’t driving into that sunset,” my mom exclaimed, and I was hit with a pang of desire. It didn’t feel right to be driving away from it. It felt like leaving something beautiful behind us, kind of like how I feel right now as I write this on an airplane and watch familiar

I wish I could freeze in this moment. I close my eyes and try to breathe it all in - the cold, dry mountain wind chilling the left side of my face, my breath hot in the scarf wrapped around my neck and mouth, the silence that is so soft I think I can hear snowflakes landing in the powder.  But I can’t keep my eyes closed for very long, for when I open them, all my other senses stand back so that my eyes get full center stage spotlight. I stand on the brink of a great expanse, and beyond me for miles and miles in layers upon layers are snow covered mountain peaks, jagged and terrifying and stunningly beautiful. Somehow, I’m standing on one of them, too, but my feet are too small and my eyes too narrow to grasp the perspective of it all. In this moment, I can’t wrap my mind around the greatness, and I remember what awe feels like.  That’s when I wish I could freeze this moment. When I feel so small and I know God is so big. When my breath is taken away. When my doubts are blown

On Christmas morning, only one present remained under the Christmas tree. And it was waiting for me. You see, I ordered this beautiful tapestry of the world on amazon a few weeks before Christmas, and when it arrived a few days later, I didn’t even unwrap it from its brown UPS packaging. It went straight from my doorstep into blue snowman wrapping paper with a bow on top, and I placed it under the tree for myself to be opened on Christmas morning. As if it were going to be a surprise! I decided to be my own Santa Clause this year, I guess. “What are you reading?” My cousin asked when she saw me snuggled up on the couch on Christmas morning. “Walking With God,” I replied (by John Eldredge). “It’s a lot about learning to hear God’s voice. A friend recommended it.” A few minutes later, she noticed the lonely present under the Christmas tree. “Oh! I almost forgot!” I exclaimed. I joked and rolled my eyes at myself as I told my cousin how I wrapped my own Christmas present even thou