Looking Up

I don't know if it because of the weather patterns we have been in or it is the season of Summer when we are angled just right to the sun, but have you noticed the skies lately. For the past several weeks, I have found my eye and my mind captured by the beautiful sky around us. Some days I can see Monet or Renoir's impressionist clouds that have little definition and purple haze at the bottom. Other days the clouds tower and are sharp and infocus like the oils of the famous outdoor artists that painted the unsettled western US two centuries ago. And the sunsets are always amazing shows this time of year.

As I take note of the skies, I also find my mind wanders to the hand of God that paints on this canvas. There is all kinds of science about why the clouds tower and why they are flat, high pressures and low...but what about the artist that designed the highs and lows to be able to communicate such beauty to us? Are they meant to inspire us, or is it all just random science, a process set in motion eons ago that continues on today. And I know that if God's hand is at work in the beauty then it follows God is at work in the storms too, and that gets complicated.

Mom had a storm last week that took out some of the oldest trees on our little hilltop. A 100 yr old Catalpa tree and a 100 yr old Oak tree. Beautiful old friends that hold many memories of tree climbs and who offered strong limbs to hold block and tackle for engines and shade for horse and rider. It is painful to watch them die slowly as the wounds from the storm will overcome the entire tree and not just the limbs that have broken off. Truly the landscape has changed.

But my faith tells me God is at work in all things...the beauty and the loss, and the calm and the storms. Is the witness simply that he is with us, when the wind is howling and the limbs are twisting beyond the physical capabilites as well as when the beauty causes us to catch our breath and pause for a moment. God whispers in both moments..."I am with you." It is that whisper that gets me through the final cutting down of the trees and the tears shed for lost friends and family...it is that whisper that allows me to look up and know I don't go it alone. Look up and be amazed by that grace.