Truest Self and 3 Good Things

This morning, today, life is...
1.  good music 
2.  winter weather
3.  new inspiration from women 10 years ahead of me in life and the living of it.   

The ones who remind me of who I want to be. 

 I, like everyone else, drove very slowly to work. It took me twice as long to get to school. But oh well.  Today I didn't care. 


Gone today was any shred of worry or angst.  Instead I embraced silence and enjoyed the snow.  Despite the fact that it was fairly dangerous and terribly close to a white out, it was also beautiful.  It made me think about God. Nature does that to people, you know.  On that level, winter does not have to be omitted or any different.  Right?  That's what I told myself.   

I've also been thinking about the gaze of Jesus on people.  

One of my closest friend's dad is once again struggling with complications from cancer.  I heard the news this week and my heart sank into a deep place.  Prayers for solidarity and peace and healing and removal from fear came to the surface in my spirit.  I thought about Tom, this man who has written to beautifully about suffering and cancer, and before this season of his life, wrote and thought about God in obvious celebration, and saw again how much I have learned from him.  He wrote about God's gaze on him in faithfulness his whole life long.  And the thought hasn't left my mind since then.  

I often think about what the Bible tells us the Trinity is doing in this world for people.  

God sings over people.  
Our names are on His hands.  
Jesus spoke so much value to people while on earth, telling them about who they really are, usually in their desperate places.
Jesus intercedes for us.  
The Holy Spirit moving through people and places, covering the earth with hope and glory and the hope of glory.  
The Holy Spirit seals us.  


It's been a while though since I've thought about the gaze of Jesus.  He is so good, He is so faithful.  I felt pulled in, pressed to think of these lovely things while I drove today.  I was grateful, once again, for the life of Tom.  I was grateful that these things Tom writes and lives out alter my life and change me too.  They make me more of my truest self than ever.

  Forever I will love the way that C.S. Lewis said it when writing The Screwtape Letters.  (Remember, Screwtape is a demon who educates others on how to deceive the human race.)

Remember always, that He really likes the little vermin, and sets an absurd value on the distinctness of every one of them. When He talks of their losing their selves, He only means abandoning the clamour of self-will; once they have done that, He really gives them back all their personality, and boast (I am afraid, sincerely) that when they are wholly His they will be more themselves than ever. 

My life is a process of becoming more of myself than ever.  Who knew that could make life so interesting and good?  It does not always feel that way, but in the end, newness and more and more life do emerge.   

Then, while planning lessons at the desk, I heard 'Rhythms of Grace'.  Talk about grounding words.  I put my life in these things.  I've seen it, felt it, lived it, especially somehow in the last two weeks.  

Third lovely thing of this day.....a woman named Tsh Oxenreider.  I've heard rumblings of her life and her work in recent weeks and months, but discovered her yesterday more fully.  Her thoughts and blog and expression of life remind me of my favorite kind of inspiring people.  I love the panache, the simplicity, the boldness.  (Yes, I just said panache, and I meant it.) Her blog is called The Art of Simple.  I am grateful for what she is doing in her little corner of the world.  Check it out! 

http://theartofsimple.net/
  
Very inspiring stuff.