the blur before the dawn

Thursday, March 12, 2009


Every once in a while, when I'm shooting, I deliberately blur something. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. This one, though, taken in the pre-dawn light this morning, just makes me want to swoon - I love the sweeping gentle in the shot, the promise just like the dawn, that day will come, that we'll see the dogwood blossoms soon.

I stopped trying to plan my life a while ago. I don't know when it happened, really. I just know that somewhere along the way, I realized that God doesn't operate from a Plan A/Plan B construct. His will for me is to know Him and to love Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

This means that my high school "full time Christian service" commitment isn't necessarily defined. I don't see God leading me to be a Pastor's wife (I'm married to a lawyer, and THAT could only have been a God thing, you know). Or to go to the mission field. I used to try to figure it out that way, to define my future so I would know where I was going and get onto the "go" track.

I told God in my second year of college that I would go anywhere, do anything He wanted. Wow, am I glad for His mercy as I have not really lived up to that commitment with all my heart. But He pursues my heart, and I know He will help me do what He has put it in my heart to do - to follow Him where He leads. Just take it as it comes, one minute at a time, one day at a time, one step toward Him at a time.

My future looks kinda like this shot to me - it's there, I know it is. I know it is beautiful, because He is good. I also know that sometimes the most poignant beauty bears an element of pain with the hope that is seen in all really good art. God doesn't reveal everything He knows to us, everything He has ordained. He knows we'd run screaming away from Him if we had to face it without His grace for that moment that He knows is coming. I know; I have seen that He always draws me closer to Himself just before something big happens in my life. He always lets me know that He is near, that His incredible love is still sure.

When the light rises full and a bit more of my future comes into focus, I don't know if I will be able to forget the beauty I'm finding in the blur, the gentle knowing that it really will be all right, because God is God and He is good and He is Love that I don't deserve and couldn't earn in a million years. Do you think this is what contentment means?

The sun is up now, and it is a gorgeous day.

1 comments:

Charity said...

I've been reading Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest this year, and wow, is it ever making me stop and think! So much of my service has been driven by me, rather than God, or started by God, and then taken over by me - you know, to be practical, or use common sense. :o) I've slowly, slowly been hearing His voice telling me to just stop. Wait. Watch. And offer myself. Which is much, much harder than it sounds! :o)

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