Perched atop a weather worn balcony, my gaze sweeps the views afforded by the Arkansas River valley. Surrounded on every side by mountains, the prairie splays wide between–a broad swath of sun kissed grasses and gray-green sagebrush. Barbed wire fences zig zag across the landscape and disappear somewhere in the distance where plains and mountains merge. And the rush of the river below creates a duet with the black capped chickadees darting from one pine branch to another.
I pause…inhaling the calm of this place–a welcome respite from the clamoring sounds of suburbia.
I’m struck by the river as it hurries by–always moving toward something unknown…the promise of what lies around the next bend luring it away from the beauty of its here and now. And in its incessant winding and wending, I wonder if the river ever pauses long enough just to notice.
But maybe it’s my life I’m really considering–how quickly time moves and twenty years young suddenly becomes forty and now I am my parents while my children have become me. And like ripples across the river’s surface, my face has begun to wear life’s lines and the days rush by.
I wonder… In all of the busyness–does my life make a difference? I pray that even in my smallness God will show Himself large…that these worn mother’s hands will willingly do the work of laundry and dishes and tucking into bed with the tenderness of the Heavenly Father and that simple words shared on a page will remind you, dear Friend, that the Word is eternal. He stands strong in the rushing waters–even walks on them–with his hands extended toward you.
No matter how rapid the current and despite the busyness flooding our lives, let’s hold onto the one who leads us beside still waters. (Psalm 23)
