
My husband Tom and I could be a case study on how opposites attract. Years ago, I dubbed him with the title: “The Man of No Reaction”. (I might even have written a song about him by that name…{snicker!}) He is a deep thinker and processes internally. I, on the other hand, feel deeply and process verbally. One is not right, and the other wrong; just opposite.
Some of you have asked me why I refer to myself as a Girdle Burr and Beauty Hunter in the poem on the home page of my website. Well here’s what I mean by that. If there is a burr in our girdle (in other words, something is eating at us), so often we are prone to stuffing it and carrying on with life. Yet we feel irritable or unsettled, sometimes repressing it so successfully that consciously we don’t even know what is making us a grouch pot. That’s the Girdle Burr part.
And what about beauty? With our fast-forward lifestyles, if we aren’t careful, we can easily miss the simple joys all around us. For me this is especially true of nature. It’s not rare for my husband, who doesn’t always relate to the intensity of my elation over some thing of beauty that has captured my delight, to begin singing the old Nirvana song to me: “I wish I were like you, easily amused…”! I don’t mind his teasing, because secretly I hold the opinion that he really does! {Snicker again!} Thus the phrase Beauty Hunter.
It’s something we are born with, you know. Have you ever observed a child’s gleeful delight in a flowering “weed”, woolly worm bug, or perhaps the moon? When did we loose that? Somewhere along the line, we begin to take the simple joys for granted. Maybe we’ve learned to subdue our emotions, or perhaps we just get too busy with the demands of life to stop and drink in the roses (or dandelions). Perhaps it comes a bit more naturally to my personality than some, but the older I get, the more I am determined to no longer stifle that starry-eyed little girl in me so full of wonder. There is a vast difference between childish and childlike, and I endeavor (much to my husband’s bewilderment at times) to set that childlike little girl free.
I LOVE autumn, and everything about it. It’s my candle-lighting, sweater-wearing, leaf-crunching, cider-sipping, make-me-happy time of year. It ushers in a flood to my senses of my favorite colors, flavors, and aromas. (Tom bakes a sweet potato pie that makes me swoon!) In the words penned by L. M. Montgomery, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers”, and I would add, Novembers too.
And what about those Harvest Moons? The other week Tom and I were driving when we had another “Nirvana Song” moment. It was early evening and the moon was taking center stage directly in front of us as we made our way home. And it was a Harvest Moon indeed! It was so big; so radiant. It took my breath away. It gave me such a thrill, that I couldn’t help, nor did I desire to cap my elation over its beauty. Although Tom certainly appreciated its splendor, he was by no means as captivated as I, nor could he relate to my inability to move on to another subject the rest of the way home. (Poor guy!)
That got me thinking though. Did you ever consider that the moon itself isn’t very pretty at all? On its own, it is cold; dark; lifeless. Its surface is peppered and scarred with massive craters. There is nothing attracted to it, for it has no gravitational pull. So how can it be that someone who is 238,855 miles away from a giant pock-marked rock in the sky that has ruled the night since the world was set in motion, can find herself so enthralled?
The moon is beautiful, because it reflects the light of the sun.
Wow…let that sink in. Are we any different? If we were honest, left to ourselves, our hearts would be as cold, dark, lifeless, and perhaps hard as the boulder in the sky we call moon. Scarred by its lot of pain and cratered with gaping holes, we look to things outside of God to fulfill it- relationships, power, pleasure, fortune, and fame to name a few. And like the moon, our hearts on their own, posses no pull that is really all that attractive to others, especially if they were privy to what they truly harbor deep inside, which is why few are ever really allowed close enough to see.
The difference between our hearts and the moon, however, is that our hearts are alive. Symbolically speaking, they are a part of our soul. (Mind, Will, Emotion, Conscience.) And thankfully, the One who set the heavens (including the moon) into motion, hasn’t finished molding our hearts yet. The snag we so often hit, however, is that there is a condition. You see God is not pushy. He gave us a free will; the choice as to how much or how little of Him we want to absorb.
Allowing His light to shine into the deep crevices of our souls can be painful however. Sin issues in our hearts are difficult to address. We would so often rather ignore the burr in our girdle, suppressing its irritation, than go through the unpleasant and more painful, yet temporary process of allowing Him to expose and purge the ugly. Yet when we come to the place where we surrender and allow God to go to work in our hearts, something amazing happens. Although our hearts may still bear scars, like the moon, they begin to reflect the beauty of the Son. That kind of a heart -scars, craters, and all- is far more attractive than gravity.
But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes a light.
~Ephesians 5:13 (NIV)
Frankly, I find it quite a relief to know that all I have to do for my cold, dark, lifeless, scarred heart to become a thing of beauty is to yield to the One who is both equipped and desirous to turn it into something breathtaking. Surrender is an ongoing, lifelong process, and it’s often humbling and surely sobering to be confronted with realities we’d rather ignore. But the more we absorb the love of God, the more we reflect His beauty. Then like the old song says, we can “Shine on, Shine on Harvest Moon”, and no matter where you land on the spectrum of deep, analytical thinker to expressive, childlike feeler, you’ll be amazed how the light of Christ reflected in you will attract others to the beauty of our Savior. Let’s reflect on that, shall we?
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Before you click on the song below, a quick update on my book series, Fruit Fables: Although I expected its release by now, I’ve come upon an interesting bend in the road. I’ll keep you posted.
Also, I sure do love your feedback. If these posts bless you, please consider a). passing them on and b). leaving your thoughts in the comment section to let me know how they may be impacting you. (Seriously, am I the only one feeling all this pruning [last blog post] or being confronted with burrs in my proverbial girdle?) And if you want to be sure not to miss any posts, just sign in with your email on my homepage, and they’ll come right to your inbox.
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Wishing you and yours a blessed and reflective Thanksgiving. Now may:
“The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.” ~Numbers 6:24-26 (NIV)
Click on the picture below to hear one of my latest songs:
Indeed