Early I awoke when the morning was still dark. I stepped outside to greet the day and thank the God who filled the sky with stars. The stars, they shined all clear and bright and blinking. I had worried in the night, because the world is not as it should be and that makes my heart break. I’d tossed and turned and thought and prayed and so I stood out there tired and quiet, the cold making me come alive.

And later when the sun came up over that one hill, that hill that grows tall with corn in the summer, the one I see out my front window, I spied something beautiful. Sometime in those dark, cold, quiet hours, He’d been making art on the Jeep while I found sleep.

And when the God who fills up the night with stars makes art, I always go out to see. 

I wondered at His handiwork. Had I not just been asking in the night if He was really there? There are these aspects of life that have me wondering if God is real or if He’s dead.  I have my doubts. So, I had asked Him, curious, and I had waited.

Then morning came and light burst forth and I could hear it.

The way He whispers.
The way He shouts.

A God who is there and is not silent.

I gaze at God-art and drink in the beauty of His Reality.

And if He could make little ice flakes on a Jeep into art, and color them with light so that they sparkle and shine and beg attention, well then maybe He’s more involved than I think.

And I read that this ice sculpting Maker is the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort and deep inside I ache and reach for Him who reaches out for me.  And I wait because while He’s making art, He’s making all things new and I most long for this–for Him to make the world right again.

Because there is this blasted affliction I can’t shake. This living under the curse. The way the thoughts wrestle and strain and can leave a girl soul-battered and bruised by morning’s light. This hurt inside simply because good exists but so does evil. There is right and there is wrong and a lot of times, wrong wins and, well, that just ruins everything.

The ground, it groans.

And I don’t doubt my life is good but I’ve seen how this world’s not safe and that irks me and I groan too.

And there’s the world but then there’s me.
How sometimes I love so well but sometimes I hate and I can be brave and then so terribly afraid. And I am full of thanks, and then I complain. 

And life’s the strangest mix of joy and pain.
It can be repulsively ugly.
And yet heart-achingly beautiful.

But God, He comforts and offers me a hope that doesn’t shake.
And though I see Him dimly now, one day I’ll see Him face to face.

In all the sporadic chaos, there are these glimpses of Love Himself in the art He creates.

The day carries on.
 Sun warms.
Ice melts.

 Peace pervades.