'Snow' Much Beauty & Fun

the gang...
skiers and 1 snowboarder
2015

Titus is a lover of skiing.  It is something he enjoys greatly and loves to pass it on.  He taught me, I didn't learn till we were dating and now he has taught our 3 sons.  His brother Tim and sister Ilona all enjoy the sport as well.

This has become a tradition that over winter break we take our families skiing.  This year it was our family and Wayne & Ilona and family that were able to go.

The snow conditions were excellent and the weather pleasant to ski.  The beauty on top of the mountain is BEAUTIFUL!!!  I had fun taking pictures along the way.  They had just received 2 feet of snow a couple of days before we got there, so the landscape was picturesque!

The hoarfrost on the top of the mountain
was absolutely BEAUTIFUL!!!
This was on our way in on Monday afternoon.

getting ready to go down the mountain

riding the lift

2 of the most favourite slopes... for some that is :)
these are 2 black diamonds -
Cupps Run and Shay's Revenge

The name of the place where we stayed

fabulous beauty on the slopes!!

Splendour and majesty are before Him,
Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.

Ascribe (give) to the Lord. O families of the peoples,
Ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.

Ascribe to the Lord the glory of His name;
Bring an offering, and come into His courts.

Worship the Lord in the splendour of holiness;
Tremble before Him, all the earth.
                                 Psalm 96:6-9

Broken Beauty

We all long to be beautiful.
We love beauty.
We want to be seen and known for beauty.
And we want to be loved.

It is our very core, for God created it that way.
But sin, loneliness, rejection, words mar our image of beauty and because it so much a part of our creation, we grasp, we search, we long for it.  And we cover.   Trying to hide the pain and shame inside with beauty outside or what we view beauty to be...

One day I was sitting in a hairdresser's shop waiting for my lady to get her hair finished, so I had a few moments and I began to see the 'world' around me.  I saw shampoos, hair care, people wanting their hair done to perfection, and the ladies doing it all.  I saw the fake, red coloured hair and the silver that pierced someone's body, and my heart ached...

My heart ached for what may be the stories beneath it all....
I ached because I, too, know the longing and reaching for beauty and perfection.  It's branded on our souls and yet seems so elusive.

Do we pierce our bodies to take away from the pain that pierces our hearts?
Is the colouring of our hair, trying to colour differently the pain that lies beneath?
And do the shoulders exposed tell us of a message that our souls have been exposed and been found wanting?

Does it all tell us of a deeper message that we hear ringing in our minds?  Does it point to something that we all long for?

I want to be found beautiful.
I long to be truly known for who I am.

But I feel as if I am lacking, found wanting.
And so... there's paint.  there's colour.  there's a piercing.  We dress accordingly.  We even smile.  All the while the ache lies deep within.  The lies we believe pierce our hearts and lodge within our thoughts.  Squishing out the true Truth.  God's Truth.

I am not enough...
I am too much...
Someone took advantage of my beauty.  Therefore it must be wrong...
I am not lovable...
I burned the beans, forgot to do...
We yell...

And the lies take root...

What is beauty?  true beauty?  Who gives definition to beauty?

Is it not the One who created it?  The Father who enjoys beauty and graced our world with it?

He created beauty and perfection.  The Garden of Eden is expression to that.  All flowers, animals, trees, fowl, everything was created perfectly and beautifully.  The fish have always caused me to marvel... talk about creativity!  flat ones, long ones, ugly ones :) pointed nose ones, gray ones, colourful ones, and all in the water where few men get to see them; unless you go to an aquarium or go scuba diving.  God LOVES BEAUTY and splashes in places least expected.  Beauty is sometimes in a place where it needs to be sought out and looked for.

The snowflakes, the crystal glow of trees on a winter morning, the sunrises and sunsets are all expressions of beauty.

And man.  Woman.  God said it is good.  Very good!  If we look at creation and see the beauty, would God create us as man and woman any less beautiful?  A child less perfect?

No.
I believe we are created beautifully and perfectly.  What changed all of that?  What causes us to believe differently?

Adam and Eve ate fruit from a tree that God had said would open their eyes to know good and evil.  They made a choice and that choice forever opened our eyes and hearts to know good and evil.  To not only know perfection and beauty, but evil and ugly.

Today choices are being made.  We make choices that affect us and others.  Others make choices that affect us.  We hurt.  We ache.  We believe something other than God's original intent for us.  We believe lies, just like Eve believed a lie in the garden.

And we hide.  We make fig leaves to cover our shame.

And God comes.  In the cool of the evening.  And asks us why we are hiding?
God sees. He knows.
He cares. And most of all HE LOVES. US. STILL.
He wants us.
He wants to redeem and remind us we are His.

So the choices are still before us today... believe the serpent of lies or God.  Believe the words that beat in your mind or the words of God's Truth.  Sin destroyed perfect beauty.  God now takes broken pieces and creates a mosaic of beauty.  He takes the messy and holds it gently in His hand and breathes His breath of Life once more on it and it becomes living once again.

I need to believe it...

Some days are easier to believe the truth of God and other days, like the last several ones, are a fight.  "Lord, show me.  Help me to believe You."
It's been a struggle to believe that I am worth something and that others like me...  To believe that I have something valuable to offer and that others even want it (like this blog).  To believe I am beautiful.

We all have words to put in the blank.  Words that may mirror mine or another voice that resounds in your mind.

But the GREAT NEWS is, that God wants to redeem it all.  HE LOVES US!!  GOD WANTS US!  HE WANTS US TO ENJOY HIM - HE ENJOYS US!

Let's say these words for each other.  Carrying each other to the throne of the Father, when we have a hard time believing them for ourselves.  Repeat them yourself.  FIGHT WITH THIS GREATER TRUTH.   This truth that trumps the reality of our lives and the story that is ours.

For some of us we have heard words that hurt.
Others have had physical pain.
It is true.  It is real.  But the greater reality and Truth is - Jesus and His Words.
I have called you by name.  You are mine.  Isaiah 43:1  Belonging.
I died for you.  John 3:16  Redemption.
I have loved you with an everlasting love.  Jeremiah 31:3    Love.
We're engraved on the palm of His hand.  Isaiah 49:15-16  We matter.

Jesus and His love for each of us, even in those hard moments.

Jesus knows pain.  the pain of rejection. denial. of beatings and mockery.  of scorning and being misunderstood.  In the midst of all hard, He loved.  He forgave.

Is less required of us?  We who want to be filled with His Spirit?
No.  It's not.

And isn't that beauty?  True beauty?  Paradoxal beauty?

I wonder if beauty doesn't look differently.  Different than what we think.  Perfection was marred in the garden.  Perfection is tainted on this side of heaven.  Perfection is Heaven.
We get glimpses of this perfect beauty in a sunrise or the unfolding beauty in a flower, but it is only a moment and then it passes.  Wrong choices have forever marred the unbroken beauty here on earth.  Jesus now creates beauty out of broken things.  He takes our pieces that we bring to Him and makes all things new.  Beauty out of ashes.  Redemption.

It's a miracle.  And Jesus is still in the miracle business of redemption.

Beauty is the broken pot that has been touched with His grace and put back together.
Or the marred piece of body that He has touched and said, "Be whole."  Redemption.
The forgiveness offered to one who has done the hurt.

It's the broken body of Jesus that offers us eternal life.
It's when we bring our brokenness to Jesus for redemption, that we find life.

Broken pieces in the hand of God = BEAUTY.

Beauty restored.
Beauty defined.

A choosing to believe....

And isn't beauty found in a heart that is at rest.  Rest from striving.  Rest from comparison.  Rest in the love of the Father who loves us so much!

A heart that hears the Father and sometimes needs to choose to believe the love He has for her.

You are loved. My friends.  We are loved.

(This is a piece of my heart... that longs to believe more fully my worth and beauty in Jesus definition; and I ache for all of us, because we have been marred and we need Jesus.)

I wish you Jesus. And may you see yourself through His eyes...  Beautiful and loved.

In Every Season There is a Purpose

In every season there is a purpose.  a reason.  If you're like me, you like the hard moments to have an explanation,  a reason or a purpose for the pain and turmoil.

But not everything can be explained or reasoned out.  Some things make NO sense.  But there is a purpose and that purpose is - to learn of God and learn to know His heart.  To catch a glimpse of His amazing grace.  To find Him and to see Him in the small moments.  To know His heartbeat and that heartbeat is LOVE.  Love for you so much He stretched out His arms and died.  He loves you with a passion.  He wants a relationship with you and me.  To be grateful.

And I'm realizing even the joy moments have a purpose beyond life going well for me. My 'success' or joy moments is to glorify Him.  Others must see Jesus in those moments, as well.  Don't forget the Lover of your soul in the midst of the 'not so desperate' moments.

There is a purpose for EVERYTHING.

And that my friends is a needed, daily reminder.  Our hearts in the middle of winter or the flurry of summer, can so easily forget and make it about ourselves.

But, my friends, (and to me) HE LOVES US! And nothing good or bad we do will change that.  The reality of that gets tarnished or tainted and even destroyed in the midst of our physical and tangible relationships here on earth.  The rejection.  The words that cut deep into our hearts.  Death.  We learn what we've witnessed and experience.  We take that knowledge and pin it on to the image of our Father, God.  He wants to redeem those experiences.  To change the pain to gain.

He sent JESUS.

Jesus came to show us something different.
He left perfection, so we could be perfect.
He left His Father, to show us the Father's heart.
He walked this earthen soil and felt the pain of rejection.  The pain of betrayal, of people not getting Him or the words He spoke.
He knows what it's like to lose a friend.  Lazarus.  He felt grief.
He knows.  He feels.  He sees.  He gets us in our hard things and painful moments.
He shows us how to love our enemies, do good to those who hate us, and even mistreat us.

He loved.  loved the lovely and the unlovely.  the one who hurt and the one who worshipped.  The only way we can do the same is to be filled with Him.  with His Spirit.  to seek His face.  to learn more of Him.  to sit at His feet, just like Mary did.

He came to show us this way.  The way of Life.  The way to life.  Because we learn by example and role models, He came to set us a different example.  One that trumps the reality of our pain and hard things here on earth. A Greater Truth.  But we must choose to believe those Truths.  We need to dig.  We must long for Him. We sometimes need to be still and LISTEN.  Listen for God... And sometimes we need to persist... For the prayer of a person's heart that longs to know God for who He is and wants to find Him in the middle of messy and hard, will not be unanswered.  It won't be instant and may require you to keep seeking and praying, but it will happen.  He hears and I believe, it delights the very core of His heart when you want to know Him, personally.

It's messy, but beautiful!  just like the bare tree.  brown. vulnerable. bark flaking.  But when the Son shines on the mess, IT'S GLORIOUS.  IT'S BEAUTIFUL!

And it's something beyond my comprehension.. how His glory redeems my ugly.  It's something that only God can do.  for you.  for me.  but we must want it.  He will not push.  He draws.  He draws our hearts with the pain and joys.  the good and the bad.  He draws us to teach us His Truth.

His purpose in each season is to REDEEM.  To redeem the pain.  To take ugly and create beauty.  Eccl. 3:11 - He has made everything BEAUTIFUL in its time.  He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work from the beginning to the end.

Autumn - He strips us of our leaves to remind us our identity is not in what we do, but Him.
Winter - When the harsh winds blow, He wants us to put our roots down in Him.  To learn of Him, more.
Spring - The hope that sweeps in with the breath of new life.  The moments we see are His grace.   The 'air' is beginning to warm.
Summer - The season we feel productive and we see fruit.  The fruit of our winter is visible.  But the harvest is not for our credit, but God's.

And the cycle happens again and again...  the cycle of redeeming our identity and reminding us who we are to be rooted in.

The work God does in our hearts is a process and the change that happens deep within, happens without us realizing the depth or extent of it; until we look back and see the steps we have walked along the way.  Eternity is broad.  It is long.  It is forever.  It has no beginning and it has no end.  The work of God in our hearts has no destination here on earth.  It is on-going, and not in a discouraging way; but in a redeeming way.  We cannot handle redemption in one lump sum.  We would be overwhelmed with the enormity of it all.  It is step by step, process by process.  Like the threads of a screw, it comes around again, only at at deeper level and every thread gets closer to the point, to the core.

To find Him or to walk the path of the messy, the broken; you must TRUST the heart of God.  And to be able to trust, you must BELIEVE that His heart is GOOD towards you.
If you do not believe that or can't grasp it because of the pain deep in your soul, that's okay.  A lot of us have been there, but it's a moment when you must CHOOSE to keep a hold of the hand of God, the hand that won't let you go and pray every day, every moment of disbelief - "God show me.  I want to see You, but right now I can't.  Help my unbelief."  And He will.  Sometime.  You may need to wait.  God is not in a hurry.  He wants you.  Do you want Him?

The Breath of Spring

Spring speaks of new life.  Fresh, rejuvenating air to breathe in.  Hope.  Life anew.
The buds appear.  Life becomes VISIBLE.

After the grueling, cold and blustery winter, the spark of spring breathes hope in our weary souls.  It's the light at the end of the tunnel.
Yes, the wind is still cold, but the days are longer, the sun a bit brighter and the air a bit warmer.

And those blades of green poking out of the bare earth... ahhh... life peeking through.  hope.  I love the breath of spring as it sweeps over the bare earth, calling life to come forth.
It's also a season that I can become very impatient with... when the cold winds still blow among the days of warmth, and I want the warmth.  I want the hope of today to linger on...

We cannot live without the hope of spring.  Our souls would truly become hard and barren.  Spring thaws leave the hard ground soft and mushy once again.  The trees start to get those tinges of red hues as the buds push forth from the bare, brown limbs.  LIFE.  My heart takes a deep breath and thaws... softens a little bit more...  ahhhh....  breathe in, breathe out, absorbing the Greater Truths of God's heart.  His love.  His hope.  His Words.  Allowing the breath of His Spirit sweep over my heart to call forth new life.

Spring is when we get to see the new growth God has done during the winter of our souls.  To see the life that only He can bring forth out of what was bare and stripped.
Lazarus.  dead.  for 3 days.  Called forth by the Maker of life to new life.  Out of the barren grave, cold and dark.  Jesus wants to birth new life in your heart.  Will you let Him??  He wants to set you free!

The hard of winter won't stay forever... spring will come.  It must for without it we would wither and die.
If you find yourself in the middle of winter - bare, vulnerable, and stripped; spring will come in God's timing for your soul.  Keep holding the hand of the One who loves you VERY MUCH, grip it if you must.  Don't let go.  Spring will come...