City Lights and Joy

The weather on my mountain is breathtaking.  Tonight I stood outside looking over the city lights by myself.  They twinkled and it was like magic, and I couldn't stop grinning.

I inhaled the fresh, fall air and for the first time I made sure to taste it, too.  It's not sweet, but it's not unsweet, either.  It's melancholy and familiar and I love it more than any other season's breath.  It's too dark outside to recognize it by its colors, but I know my friend Autumn by her smell.

Deeply I sucked it into my nose and mouth, held it in, and then pushed it out back into the sky again.  I thanked God for my breath.  I danced my fingers like a piano player, though I can only play Twinkle Twinkle, on the railing and thanked God for fingers that move.  I bounced on my healthy feet and wiggled side to side with my happy legs.  I didn't sing for a while because I wanted to hear the last of the leaves dancing together... but, of course, it wasn't long before I couldn't help but hum a little.

Hallelujah screamed at me from every visible thing.  Even the invisible things somehow shouted God's glory at me.

God has blessed me, even in the midst of heartsickness, with an inexplicable joy this week.  I have been practically bouncing off the walls with sheer blessedness.

None of this is my doing.  When I go off by myself and retreat into chick flicks and chocolate and refuse to smile, life crashes without any mercy.  But God is teaching me to truly run to his arms in sorrow instead of running from him.

So as I watched the city lights flicker, I remembered my smallness and that made my love for God get bigger.  How could such a tiny thing like me be seen, much less loved by such an awesome Lord?  For every wavering light there are hundreds of people who all need grace and who all need love.  Who am I to pout about... anything?

Instead, I choose to grin.  And I pray that God will fill me with so much joy that it'll just bubble up and over and pour out all over the people around me so that they might feel joy, too.  I pray to serve and not to be served, and I pray that God will give me a heart for that more than anything else.

I want to weep with those who weep, because God holds my own tears in a bottle.  I want to put a smile on the faces of other's because God keeps giving me one.  I want to bring music into people's lives because God keeps putting songs in my heart.  I want to write words for people because of the one, true Word.

I love you who are reading this and I just want you to know that you can feel free to email me or leave comments or whatever.  I'd just love to send you encouragement if you need it, or anything else.  I don't write this blog for myself, and I would love for it to be a kind of conversation.

Be joyful, little people.  Because your God is big and his blessings encompass all.

Love,
Caro