I won’t publish this post until Monday morning but I’m writing it to you a little after 6:00 PM on Sunday evening. I’m only giving myself a little while to finish it so that I won’t awaken tomorrow morning wanting to whisper, woe is me, it’s work, work, work. Blah, blah, blah. Work martyrs are fake martyrs. They don’t count. They’re too self-important. It dawned on me about 2 years ago that no one was making me work nonstop but me so why, then, did I want to find somebody to blame for driving this skeleton like a shovel into quicksand? Anyway, I want to dance with my grandchildren at their weddings.
So, wonders never cease, some things in my life actually changed for a change but that’s another story for another time. I like work. That’s the biggest issue. I love it even. But the body makes certain demands that are harder to ignore in more, how shall I say, seasoned years. That there is not always energy to spare after decades of flying high on fumes has been a glorious, unsolicited gift to me and one that came as a shock after major surgery and a serious cancer threat. I have savored what I do – researching, studying, serving – and what God has placed around me – many friends and fellow sojourners – and what I get to experience in my 4-generation family so much more in an ever-so-slightly less revved up gear.
For instance, I’m more apt to let time suspend for a few seconds and count the steps it takes for Annabeth to run to me from the car with a smile stretched from sea to shining sea. And I make notes – at least mental and sometimes actual handwritten – of the statements that cause the most prominent lisps with Jackson’s three missing front teeth. Friday night I had to purely look away at the dinner table when he said, “Did my mommy show you the pictures of the two postcards they sent?” Show-pictures-postcards-sent. Perfect. I tried to act like I was reflecting with my elbow on the table and my chin on my fist while I steeled myself to answer, “No, but she told me about them. I want to see them!” (It was everything I could do not to ask him to please repeat the question.) Amanda and I laughed later until we nearly had to kick our legs for relief.
I thank God for lessons only time can adequately teach and for still leaving room for airplanes, short nights, hikes, books, Bible dictionaries, and bikes. And still a fair amount of revving up. I’m not sure I could bear revlessness.
My man’s been gone for the day so it was all mine for the taking. I had a reflective, worshipful morning at church despite four shots of coffee strong enough to cleanse the sinuses and shear the throat like a spring sheep. (Remind me to get Jackson to read that sentence later.) I sat next to my firstborn on the front row and received a word about forgiveness from a pastor I greatly respect and took the Bread and the Cup with a depth of seriousness that made them feel especially healing to me. Maybe even filling. I was touched in my soul when I saw the elements on the edge of the stage in the chapel, just waiting to be served. I had not known we were to receive them but I had hoped. Right at the Clay Road exit on Beltway 8 as I was nearing our church that morning, a few lines turned in my head. I jotted them down in the parking lot.
O Glorious Lord’s Day
Our souls to awake
Saints to be gathered
Awash in glad grace
Called to the table
Jesus the Head
Partake, all you ransomed ones
By love come be fed.
I love church. What a harbor it has been to me through the years. I love the Table. I love its Head. My life would be a black hole without Christ and the communion of saints.
I drove my nearly 40 minutes home from church, fired up the stove and heated up Keith’s homemade chicken soup from yesterday – perfect for our first bona fide autumn day in Houston, Texas – and I ate a blistering bowlful by a wide-open book. Satisfied and sleepy, I heaved myself into the king-size hammock my coworkers gave me last year and held on tight till it quit swinging. It takes about 3 minutes. I read a little more, laughed, sighed, reflected. This is said hammock. I clipped this particular shot the day before.
Then, after a cup of tea, I pulled on my rubber boots to pay up on that promise of a walk I’d made to Queen Esther who’d nearly knocked me out of the hammock earlier, book sent flying, with her obsessive compulsion for closeness.
I was only about three minutes into our usual walk in the country when I said to the air what I’ve said to Keith one hundred times. “This is my favorite spot on this walk.” So I pulled out my iPhone to take a picture of it for at least the 15th time. I’m not exaggerating. I take the same exact shot over and over. Then I looked at it, blew out my lips in frustration and said again to the air, “I can never get this picture to turn out as fabulous as this really is.”
Then I looked at it again. And that’s when I realized for the very first time that the reason why I can never fully capture the beauty of it is because it’s really not all that spectacular. Quaintly pretty, yes. To us nature lovers anyway. Maybe a four. Maybe just a three.
But, it’s not what high-dollar sightseers would throw hand to chest over, bracing for visually-induced coronary thrombosis, exclaiming Breathtaking! Stunning! Well, I never!
No, now, THIS is the kind of thing you clutch your heart over:
I took that picture from a Delta airplane window exactly two years ago just before landing in that valley for a couple of days. I’m not sure there is a place more beautiful than Jackson Hole, Wyoming in the pioneered universe. Not to me anyway. But somehow when I’m there I can never get past the sight of it. I always plan to do my most creative writing there but I rarely do. Somehow, when nothing is left to my imagination, well, then…nothing is left to my imagination. It’s all filled up. And that’s that.
That’s the revelation I got today. The reason I can’t capture the beauty in these crude woods on camera is because it’s a beauty felt more than seen. It doesn’t scream anything. It won’t interrupt you while you’re talking. It doesn’t beg anyone to pen or paint it.
Simple things tend to have more manners. They won’t say a word if you don’t let them. If we don’t shut up, they will. But it will be our loss.
The beauty in the threadbare. The beauty in the unswept scenes that refuse to finish everything out for you. Or think for you. They leave the spiderwebs to walk into and the realistic fear of a snake slithering by. They leave you to have to kick the dried-up mud off your boots when you get home and to run the water hose over your slobbering dog. And, while you’re at them, they won’t leave you so speechless you can’t answer the phone in your back pocket. Go right ahead if you want to. And sometimes you’ll be glad you did. But other times, you might just get that sense that you walked and talked right past something special, if only vaguely special in a world overwrought with specialties.
The chance not only to see beauty.
But to feel it.
May God grant us this day a whisper of His beauty that sweeps right past our vision and dives deeply like a stream into our world-parched souls.
This is absolutely amazing…..as always!
Why aren’t there any comments to it? Does it need it be reposted?
This is too beautiful to be an oversight or whatever it is…..some I.S. tech somewhere needs to get this posted already…..and, your forgiven! 🙂
Totally lovely, yep…
Seriously, I apologize. I’m without excuse, I can’t even blame this on menopause…..as much as I’d like to. When I posted my first comment this morning, I thought today was October 15th(NOT)….wow! I can’t be left alone anymore. I couldn’t believe the original entry was dated October 8th and was without comment….hence mine. Straight up absent-mindedness… There wasn’t a comment yet because it was newly posted and of course, my comment posted first!
I bet you guys thought, “yep, it’s gonne be one of those weeks, full moon and all.”
Please forgive me…..lol
Vickie 🙂
Beautiful!
That’s how I feel when I walk in the woods here too – or driving down a little highway where the trees almost touch overhead and a slight breeze moves them to clap their leaves together in praise to the MOST HIGH! Just thrills me to my soul! I’m from Montana and I LOVE the majesty of my mountains – but He has placed something special in these woods of SE Texas.
This was beautiful! I feel so many times we get caught up in the busyness of every day life that we miss out on the little moments that God is wanting us to experience! I want to be more sensitive to those moments and be more aware!
Thank you for sharing your heart and life this morning! You are such a blessing!
At our house, we call those kind of views in the woods “tree tunnels” and we love them so much when we find them- they give the heart a little thrill!
Have you seen the show Mist? I think a company in the UK puts it out, but you can get the DVDs from ama.zon. Your dog reminded me of the sheep dogs on the show. My kids really enjoy them!
Love you Beth I have studied under many of your teachings, I have seen you at live events and I read your blog often. I feel like I know you but I know that only in Eternity I will be able to sit down and have a cup of tea with you, After Jesus of coarse, my first cup of tea in Heaven is with HIM. I just wanted to say a simple thank you for loving Christ and letting Him love you. I am one of many who is able to live life in His abundance because of your obedience…
I have experienced that kind of beauty so often, even crave it. I think there is beauty in so many simple things but we rarely take notice. I have tried unsuccessfully to capture the sun shining through a cobweb but was left to let my mind feast on the beauty.
We live by a lake and the sunset around here is often fabulous, especially, I’ve noticed, when there are clouds. Oh, my kids know to look and see what the sky looks like across the lake at sunset and lately they will comment if there there is even slight beauty sinking on the horizon. Success!
Beautifully expressed post, Beth. A whisper of his beauty — that’s all it takes to fill my soul. Love those moments He gives us!
Amen.
Totally love this!! I got so sucked into this blog reading that when I was done, I had to shake my head and realize where I was!!! Thank you!!
Awesome!
It’s SO true that beauty is often found in the “normal” or “mundane” or even sometimes the down-right “ugly”. Takes “Be still and know that I am God” to a whole new level of amazing!
Thank you LP Team for your ministry! You are muchly loved!
I want to dance with my grandchildren at their weddings too. Beautiful words you penned, sweet Mother Hen. 🙂 I love my church too and the 45 minute drive I have each way is worth it. I’ve become so thankful for the long drive.
Your hat makes me think of My Fair Lady.
Lovely, Beth…and a completely perfect word for this autumn Monday morning. Thank you!
Thank you. Indexed those words this morning!
Perfect Monday morning inspiration. 🙂 I’m always striving to capture that “feeling” as well… to make it tangible. While you may feel it a struggle to capture the essence of that special spot by camera, you most certainly did so with words. Beautiful…
Lovely post, Beth. You so beautifully risk and reveal your heart in your writing. Thank you for your transparency, authenticity and most of all, your obedience.
With much love and gratitude,
Patti Hayes
PS: Lindsee, thank you for all your hard work. Finding it so helpful to have the comments numbered, I was reminded of what a blessing you are to Siestaville through the ministry of this blog.
Grace to you,
Patti Hayes
You are so sweet Patti. Thank you for your sweet words! It is truly my pleasure to serve you all.
“Simple things tend to have more manners. They won’t say a word if you don’t let them. If we don’t shut up, they will. But it will be our loss.” ~ This is my favorite thing ever. I just had to share it with my husband via Skype. Thank you, Beth!
Thanks Beth for sharing today. It was a blessing to read this morning. It caused me to realize more about what we experienced yesterday in making a visit to a precious couple at the hospital. They have a new born son who has had a stroke on each side of the brain and the doctors have told them that their baby will not live. His little heart is beating so strong still. He was born last Wednesday and he is still alive. When I looked at this sweet one, I saw the perfect creation of God. He is beautiful and we know and the parents know that God is in control of what happens in the days ahead. We are praying for a miracle in the little one and placing him in God’s hands. We did see God’s threadbare beauty in this newborn face! Pray for little Noah. Thanks & Blessings.
What a beautiful blog post! Reading it with my morning tea, made for the perfect morning.
My grandmother is an artist and painted a picture so similar to your favorite walking spot…sadly, my sister got the picture 🙁 but I did get a print of it…it always looks so serene and lovely to me. I feel ya, sister!!
Thank you for such a beautiful post! What a great way to start my Monday! Sure love you, Siesta Mama!! 🙂
So beautifully written!
Peace,
Kim Feth
Apex, NC
Oh how I love this post… You’ve captured something so beautifully true. It speaks words to how I feel when we escape for a few days to our “country home” (tiny bungalow but it has a YARD!) from the smoggy city… watching the changing colour of the leaves (I’m in Ontario Canada), the black squirrels playing ferociously with each other, the cute little chipmunks scampering across the yard looking skittish, the sunlight through the leaves sending funky shadows on the grass… it’s not GORGEOUS… but yet … it is. To me. A breath of fresh air. Enjoying the small details in God’s amazing creation. On this Canadian Thanksgiving day – I’m so thankful for this (even if I’m bundled up tight wishing it was just a tad bit warmer!)! 🙂
Have a blessed day dear Ms. Beth!
Thank you so much for this post Beth. It was such a wonderful Birthday present! Today, Heaven has filled me with more than enough, and his beauty (the seen and the unseen) is overflowing my cup! Oh, praise Him!
I have been feeling like I’m blindly walking busily past all the beautiful places/moments.
I feel so glad you wrote! Lord, help me remember today to pause and look around and enjoy more moments Instead of rushing through and missing them all…
Oh yes. I already recognized a whisper of God’s beauty when as I sit at my kitchen table, sipping coffee and watching autumn leaves falling like snow.
beauty in the threadbare. yes. my favorite places at my place have smell and feel that i never can capture….
Such a nice start to my day. Thanks, Miss Bibby. 🙂
I needed these words. I still don’t know how quite to get over the workaholism especially when there are so many things to get done that have to be done. This Friday, I’m missing my son’s senior night of Football because of a speech I have to give in New Jersey that I committed to a year a go. However, as a teacher, without the “extra” money, we wouldn’t have his college fund. Such a balance here and such a struggle. Plus, social media can suck the life out of you if you’re not careful.
Thanks for the ponderings, I can always count on you to hit on what I need to hear — but then again, we both know it isn’t you, but God’s Holy Spirit that does these things. Thanks again.
Dearest Beth,
Your words are beauty. Thanks for the glimpses of your life and how those moments help you turn and return to this great God of ours. We love you so much!
S. Lynn (and all your sister pals!)
Beautiful Beth! Thank you! I had one of these moments this morning. My sweet 4-year-old daughter, at 5:45 this morning, sat in her little rocking chair describing to me all the different colors she sees when she closes her eyes and presses her fingers on her eyelids. A new discovery!
Thank you for beckoning to those of us who’d slow down long enough to listen. To hear an innocent, child-like invitation to come outside and “play.” To sweetly savor a Sunday’s simple splendor (let Jackson take a crack at that one).
Btw, looooved the Audrey-Hepburn-esque hat I spied next to you on the hammock. I have a similar one in a distinctively summery shade of fuschia (spell check doesn’t like my spelling, but a great color deserves a great name; even if I’m too lazy to go look it up).
As a freshly hatched empty nester, one of my favorite new things is time to read and research. Okay, that’s two things, but I’m grateful for God’s gift of curiosity, easy access to search engines, and inexpensive availability of used books. Though few have ever mistaken me for someone with a rocket strapped to her back, the calmer pace to my present season allows for the luxury of more concentrated thought. More reflective, if you will. Time to digest, to mull over, to, excuse my crudeness, chew my cud. Threadbare? I’m not sure. I think I’m just seeing the threads with more clarity. Of course, it could be these new readers I’ve had to add to my wardrobe during same said season, (yet another phrase you could throw in the path of the incisor-challenged).
Thank you for letting me wax lengthy–as if I gave you any choice. I’d shorten, but that would require editing and that has never been one of my gifts in any season. Blessings!
That was beautiful, Beth, and beautifully encouraging.
What a beautiful post. I am a frequent lurker — first time poster. I came to your blog this morning to tell you something about my daughter and your post about church fit in perfectly. Then I read your comments about finding space and peace in various settings and they spoke to me as well. “Thank You Father for giving Beth such a great ability to convey the thoughts You give her.”
My daughter is a grad student at Vanderbilt and found out last week that she will be doing her 10 week externship for her Master’s in Speech Language Pathology at TIRR in Houston. My FIRST thought when she told us, “Oh this is so exciting. She can visit the church Beth Moore attends!” I don’t know the geography of Houston, but I know it’s big. I think she will try to live within a reasonable distance of TIRR (if that’s possible). So I don’t know if it will be practical for her to attend your church, but I promise — I will be urging her to!!
Love, Mary
Wow. So well put. You know, I have been thinking similar things ever since last Tuesday. It was raining here and our playdate was canceled, so while my 19 month old napped, my 4 year old and I randomly decided to watch the movie “Hachi”. It’s a movie about a dog and his master (starring Richard Gere). Anyway, Richard Gere’s character was a professor of music and, in one scene, he ends up playing a beautiful piece of music for his class on a grand piano. He then proceeds to tell them how music is something that can’t be fully captured on a recording, much the way life is not fully captured in a video. There is just something about experiencing music and life in the moment it is created. The thought lingered with me ever since, and has been proving true over and over again in my heart. That very same Tuesday night my husband and I went to a Switchfoot concert (the first concert we had been to in YEARS) and we were blown away as we listened to songs we had heard on CD 1,000 times come to life as though it was the first time we’d ever heard them. I can’t help but think this is also why we need to actually LIVE our faith out – not just read about it or think about it – but actually walk it out. Because that’s ultimately how we really live… Anyway, I’m not sure this is making sense. Thanks once again for sharing your heart. I love you so much- Amy xo!
With eyes for Christ, everything is glorious.
Dearest Beth,
Written as only a writer can!!!! I have a place too over the years it was where two coulees ran together and more than once we were running the dairy herd down the one coulee to get to the dairy barn and the green hills and the dust kicked up by 50 dairy cows times four hooves a piece on those winding cow trails left dirt swirls to burn your eyes but it was pretty. It was felt, though, not really seen like you said.
That is part of getting shall we say seasoned!!!! You savor more! I see that myself. As you age you slow down as if the Lord of the Universe is telling us in His divine wisdom to slow and savor more for by it comes wisdom!!!! Now I see I am not the oldest gal who answered your survey!! Yay!
You’d have made a farm gal Beth!!! I think!!!
Betty
Thank you Beth!!! I need this today. I was “fake martyr”ing this morning! Thank you for sharing your pictures! I felt a little teary and so grateful reading the post. My labradoodle Flower (65 lb) likes to climb up with me on my hammock too! Love this post so much. I want to dance with my grandbabies too! Love you girl! (also, I love the wooded walk)
Our little pond and paved walking path were whispering this morning. I took three pictures with my phone’s camera, trying to capture the hushed loveliness of the steam rising off the pond in the chill. It was the first coat-scarf-and-gloves morning in Dallas this fall, too. You’re not the only one. Thank you for giving words to my experience and helping me understand why the camera couldn’t capture what I wanted.
What a lovely poem, to boot! It sounds like you made the most of your Sunday. Grace to you in our Lord Jesus Christ!!
Our Miss Beth – that was beautiful. Beautifully said and beautifully true. The peace that comes from filling yourself with the simply beautiful. Thanks so much for sharing.
We expect and look for him in the granduer along with all others but when he catches us unexpected or unexpecting in the everyday stuff it is as if he is calling us out individually to see and feel him . A sacred place where God expected to meet with us. Makes the ordinary a sacred place after that moment with God. Everytime you see it you remember Him and it makes you long for his presence.
I know that feeling very well, quiet solitude and all struck wonder seeing all he created. No matter how simple or majestic it’s all the same. This past Thursday driving across the Smoky Mountains on my birthday to see my Mom I got it again and again. First seeing color up higher and my jaw dropping to discover the beauty and saying out loud I love you Lord Jesus. To seeing my 90 year old Mother looking great (she looks 70ish) . Then driving back and stopping at Morton’s Overlook to stare a minute at the sunset and thank him to allow me to live and remain thirsty for him.
Oh heavens, Beth. This is likely my favorite of your posts. You have been such a friend to us here in Siestaville in so many ways, but today… An honesty of soul prevails that feels like a warm cup of coffee and a nice long talk. Thank you for sharing your heart. I know exactly what you mean. I captured ravishingly beautiful pictures on our trip to Vail a little more than a year ago. But, then there were moments, when I snapped pictures in a more quaint setting – not so grandiose as the sunset over Lionshead, and the picture looked well – nonplussed! 🙂 Thanks you for reminding me… Love you, M
Ah, Beth… this post made me take a deeeeep breath in, and a deeeeep breath out, as if to say, “I know exactly what you’re saying, sister.” I cherish those moments of seeing beauty when it could’ve gone by unnoticed, knowing full well that I miss so many of them.
Enjoy your work this week, Beth.
With love from Chiang Mai. 🙂
What a great reminder to appreciate and look for God’s beauty everywhere. This nature lover gives your pic a 6. Definitely not a 3 or 4!!
hear my response as a whisper…..WOW.
You said it and I heard it. Amen and amen.
Thank you for your post. I look forward to reading them. There is nothing grandiose about the panhandle of Texas, flat, dry, and brown (not much greenery around here) but the sunsets are unbelievable and I love it. As I was driving last night looking for a place to take staff pictures, I was reminded how “beautiful” the plains of Texas are. It’s where we minister and I would love to capture that in our pictures. Thank you for the reminder of the simple things in life that God gives us to enjoy and remind us of Him.
Beautiful! Love to see a picture of your world!
Saw some of that beauty that can only be felt to be appreciated this weekend in some expressions of love that probably not another soul noticed. It felt like a hug from God – and made the world around me look beautiful.
I am. Sitting in the Albuquerque, NM airport coming back home after 2 weeks in God’s beautiful country of Az., NM, & Co. What magnificent beauty we have seen. But to this Texas girl, there is no place like home. Back to see the people I love most and back to my fabulous church. I love to travel, but thank you, God, for a wonderful place called “HOME”.