Influence

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It has been a long while since I have posted anything here. I have been busy completing three years toward my B.A. in English and my senior year is underway. My current class (Creative Writing) has finally given me the space to take off the tight harness of academic writing rules, and it feels SO GOOD!! After reading my first assignment, Mom and Daddy gave it their thumbs up and suggested I make it a blog post, so here it is. It is my story and their story. It's a little longer than my usual posts, but as with everything I have ever posted here, I pray it encourages you to run "up the sunbeam to the sun" (C. S. Lewis). "Follow my example,  as I follow the example of Christ." 1 Corinthians 11:1 NIV I sat above them on the stairs. Looking down through the window-like openings in the partition between the living room and the stairway, I listened to the basketball players, football players, baseball players, wrestlers, track athletes, both the lettermen

Every Pretty Thing

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Thank You, God, for pretty. Pretty dew-droppy pink. Pretty purple flower stars. Pretty, perfect lavendar bouquets, ready-made. Pretty, pretty, pretty. He didn't have to make things pretty, you know. He could have confined His creation to dull grey, straight lines, purely utilitarian features, no frills. What would this world be like if God had left pretty out of it? What would our lives be like if nothing was the least bit pretty? Even those who ordinarily don't notice beauty in their surroundings would be shocked at how much they would miss the pretty things we see every day. Thankfully, He didn't only make things practical. Thankfully He didn't only make things that served some pragmatic purpose or that performed a service to mankind. Thankfully He didn't relegate us to a useful, but ugly existence. He made most things to be both good for something AND pretty in some way. He even made some parts of His creation solely to BE PRETTY! That's all they're good for! That's all they do! What kind of God is He that He would do that?!! Pretty is part of who God is and every pretty thing He has made is a little revelation of Him. He likes to make pretty things and He loves it when we notice them and catch the spark of Him in their beauty. People are pretty. I remember when each of my kids was born, how I just couldn't stop my exclamations of how pretty they were--I know every mother thinks that, but mine really were! Ask anybody! Even when we meet people, who from our fallen eyes, don't look so pretty, people are God's best work--Ask Him!
"the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." Genesis 2:7 NIV
Not one other created thing was brought to life with the very breath of God!!
"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good." Genesis 1:31 NIV
Of all the other things God created, Adam and Eve were the only ones God called "very good." Human beings were God's favorite part of His creation--they still are. Granted, they can also DO some pretty ugly things, but what He made them to be is beautiful. How desperately we need to see people through eyes that notice what He made in them.
"When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God." Genesis 5:1 NIV
Father, help us to see Your image imprinted on every person we meet, and help us to treat them with the love You want us to show them. Don't let us take the pretty things You make for granted. Help us to speak pretty . . . live pretty . . . love pretty . . . like YOU! It is no secret that Jesus has the prettiest heart of all--make mine look just like His! Pretty please! What's the prettiest thing you've seen today?

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