shummerrr

I've been pondering two things lately. One is the indescribable beauty this world contains in things we don't much talk about. Light filtering through leaves and shampooed hair and that contented bubbledy feeling after you've wrung the last laugh out of the last corner of a joke at dinner and carry the dishes into the kitchen still giggling. And singing hymns from four differnet hymnals, the old creaky pages and everyone having a different number...and Mother's voice going deep where none save Dad can follow. Hah. And those 3 pounds of bacteria happily living in our intestines, churning out vitamin K. What a huge community it must be to make 3 whole pounds out of microscopic organisms. Ha. And laughs. I love how different they are person to person. Some people's kind of jump out suddenly, and other people's rumble around in their chests and you can predict the moment they'll hit the air. There's so much to notice when you're really trying to "live to the hilt" and "be all there" in every "situation you believe to be the will of God" that I barely have time for it. That's Jim Elliot. Or Elisabeth. Or Elisabeth quoting him. Either way...

And yet the second thing is that "these are our soldiering years". That's Carmichael. I'm reading her biography right now and am thoroughly inspired. She had an unflagging joyful soldiering spirit. And both are true...that our soldiership years in a place full of so much darkness can be dappled with light of different kinds of laughs and silly things like fuzzy weeds that filter the light. It's beautiful and somehow solemn too. Evil pervades but grace abounds--and reigns. Something to grab hold of!