{ My Father's World }

My house is a glorious riot of flowers, remnants of the baby shower I hosted over the weekend. Daisy and rose, giddy with color, vases scattered on mantle, table, windowsill; sun-drenched perfection of Creator's wild imagination.

They are like living things, these colors; lush, vivid, vibrating with joy and and intensity and life: Flowers doing exactly what they were created to do. Hues lush and vibrant: deep orange, perfect pink, yellows and blush and white-fading-to-red. A chorus of pigments, petals and stamens and stalks: praising simply by being.

 

I snap photos giddy, feel laughter bubble up in my chest as my shutter clicks-clicks-clicks. Like one starving for beauty, I am ravenous, afraid I'll miss some angle of this joy, some perspective of this flower-praise and I don't want to. But I know I will. Simple flowers, Gerbera daisies and spray roses, they are too much for me. I can't capture them fully, can't bottle this unbridled beauty and joy radiating.

But I can soak it in now. I can immerse myself in this moment, this beauty; I can record snippets, each frame a note in the song these blossoms are singing. I search for best light, best backdrop on this gray morning. If I wait for sunshine before I transcribe this refrain, these beauties may fade.

This is my love song to Jesus! The thought bubbles up from nowhere--nowhere? No, not nowhere; this is Truth: This is my love song to Jesus. This is me dancing, delighting, reveling in the gifts He gives me today. This is me accepting with open hands the gifts He offers, offering Him my delight as thank-you. This is joy. This is my love song to Jesus!

This is my Father's world,

and to my listening ears

all nature sings, and round me rings

the music of the spheres.

This is my Father's world:

I rest me in the thought

of rocks and trees, of skies and seas;

His hand the wonders wrought.

This is my Father's world,

the birds their carols raise,

the morning light, the lily white,

declare their Maker's praise.

This is my Father's world:

He shines in all that's fair;

in the rustling grass I hear Him pass;

He speaks to me everywhere.

This is my Father's world.

O let me ne'er forget

that though the wrong seems oft so strong,

God is the ruler yet.

This is my Father's world:

why should my heart be sad?

The Lord is King; let the heavens ring!

God reigns; let the earth be glad!

~ Maltbie D. Babcock



*I owe much of my understanding of joy and thanksgiving as an appropriate response to whatever gifts Jesus gives to One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskamp. Highly recommended!