loving simple things.

i much too much enjoy the quiet of life.  i enjoy traversing my inner world and living in a special intimacy and calm on a daily basis.  i love the opportunity to imagine and the ability that creativity brings to my mind and heart.  every time i think of my life as a whole, the future that lays out in front of me, the present i am in, i think of one word that i long for, one thing that i crave. simplicity.  i like simple things.  i like folding laundry,  packing a suitcase, lying on my bed and staring out the window getting lost in my thoughts and dreams.  when heavy things are happening, i like that a lightness in life can still exist.  i like opening the screen door and feeling the sun warm my skin inch by inch, and letting the late afternoon breeze fill my insides with its calm. i like stopping on walks to smell the flowers and admire God's creativity that so inspires me. simplicity...it's truly wonderful.

sigh no more.

lately at church the pastor has been focusing on this series sort of about our sighs.  what do you sigh about? sometimes i feel like life can just be one big sigh.  the word sigh can act as a noun or a verb. the noun sigh refers to a long, deep, sometimes audible exhalation expressing sadness, relief, tiredness, or something akin to these things.  the verb sigh refers to emitting a long deep audible breath expressing those same feelings stated above.  as always, as i feel a lot, it is easy to become entrenched in reasons to sigh.  yet, i never seem to get stuck there too long, because there is always hope, and a rope to grab to pull me out. i think, i pray that happens for all of us. i heard a wonderful testimony of a woman who overcame severe drug addictions that were insanely deep.  she heard God's voice when she was living in a storm drain calling her out of it. it was truly amazing.  but in the same vein i've watched a friend walk down that tortured path and die because of it. sigh.it's so hard to understand why things happen the way they do, and how God is working in the midst of it. i always go back to this truth found in Isaiah.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways, my ways, says the Lord. for as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways than your ways, and my thoughts, higher than your thoughts.

i think there is something so profound about this. sometimes it is hard to comprehend truth in the heart. we relegate it to the dusty corner of our mind, never letting it penetrate to the heart. i know that He is so much better than anything else. and yet my heart often wanders off away from what my head knows. i vacillate between His ways and my own...and that is when the sighs creep in. and of course the sighs are usually rooted in lies, and than the sin enters into the picture. ugh, what a vicious cycle it becomes. i know i cannot overcome the sighs, the lies, and the sin on my own. but with Him, who is able to do beyond anything I can imagine or comprehend, I too can be changed. because He loves me enough to change me. woah! for real? just letting that sink in a little bit literally blows my mind.

as i think about sighs, these lyrics keep floating around in my head, and really they are kind of an awesome reminder that fits. ~love will not betray you, dismay or enslave you, it will set you free, be more like the man you were meant to be, there is a design, an alignment, a cry, of my heart to see, the beauty of love as it was made to be.~