Confession time: I am suffering from scenery envy.
It all came to a head last night when Maria posted a very beautiful photo on Twitter.
“Do you get to see that EVERY DAY?” was my reply.
Turns out, she does.
Luckyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!
Next week we’ll spend Thanksgiving at my sister’s house. When you look out her kitchen window, you see endless woods. And deer. And pretty rocks. She gets to look at that EVERY DAY.
Growing up, I had the opportunity to see this several times a week:
I miss that. I really do.
There are advantages to living here in the ‘burbs: I have neighbors who have become good friends. We have shared joys, sorrows, pantry staples, child care, recipes and backyard pools. I live a block and a half from the nearest gallon of milk. I can walk to Target, Panera, Dunkin’ Donuts, and the post office.
But all that convenience does come at the price of beauty. I have 3 gas stations in a half-mile radius, but I don’t get a panorama uninterrupted by a looming orange Self-Storage sign.
I could wallow in self-pity that I don’t get to enjoy, on a daily basis, a Georgia lake, the North Jersey mountains, the Paterson Falls. Or I could take better notice of what I do get: beauty on the micro scale. There are no sweeping vistas, but I have a lilac bush right outside my living-room window, with a bird feeder nestled inside. That window faces west for optimal sunset viewing. My dining room and kitchen face east, so I can see morning sunrises as I pack lunches and evening’s moonrise while I wash the dishes. I can appreciate my neighbor’s pink-flowering dogwood tree every spring. I can marvel at snowflakes collecting on empty lilac branches and tiny snowbird footprints beneath the bird feeder.
The beauty of God’s creation is both big and small. Do you appreciate the beauty in your world, in what you get to see EVERY DAY?
I must have made the choice to “implode” at some point in my journey. To see God’s hand in the most unlikely places-not past, not future-NOW‼️Perhaps as caregiver, on ‘lock down’, everything you come across becomes as wondrous as The Seven Wonders of the World…thank you Lord-Life Is Good-ALWAYS‼️ThkU Mrs.Johnson😘
There are little pockets of beauty, sometimes conveniently located next to a traffic light. 🙂 But what I get to see every.day. is the sky. Sometimes it’s just boring, gorgeous blue, but there are often sunrises and clouds that are spectacular. I’m always happy to see the moon out during the day—that really connects me to the Maker for some reason.