Monday, December 29, 2014

The Reality of God: Seeing Creation for the First Time




But the basic reality of God is plain enough. Open your eyes and there it is! By taking a long and thoughtful look at what God has created, people have always been able to see what their eyes can’t see: eternal power, for instance, and the mystery of his divine being. So nobody has a good excuse.
                                                                                    Romans 1:20, The Message
           

           
            For three more days I arrived at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit early in the morning and stayed into the evening, watching monitor numbers and lights, feeding and holding, singing and rocking. For diversion, I walked around the large medical center, visited the gift shop and obstetrics nurses, and occasionally napped in the parent’s lounge just around the corner from Cory’s room.
           
            Southern California’s normally mild spring weather turned vengeful and the first week of March brought rain and flooding to the area. I observed nature’s spectacle from the large window plates next to Cory’s bed. Actually, I not so much observed as absorbed, sitting and watching in wide-eyed rapture as immense puddles formed in the parking lot and the wind bent the thin, towering eucalyptus trees. Rain and wind performed in concert as they obscured the street and blurred traffic lights. Accompanying water droplets cascaded rapidly in vertical patterns down the slick, immense windows, looking at times like frantic, speeding motorists on a California freeway. At other times they looked like vehicles in a pileup.
           
            It was all so fascinating. Beautiful. And I kept asking myself: Why haven’t I observed it in such a way before? Or taken the time to observe it? The performance captured my attention as though I’d never before witnessed anything like its simple, mesmerizing choreography.
           
            I experienced the same potent emotion my first drive home from the hospital and on every morning’s return trip. The hills were so graceful and alluring, the vegetation so fresh and verdant. The wild lilacs were in prolific bloom due to the unusually abundant moisture, and the plants produced brilliant, purple clumps of showy exhibition for miles along the freeway. Our own bright yellow, orange and shock-pink ice plant had exploded into a spectacular botanical carpet attracting an assortment of iridescent butterflies and honeybees by the thousands.   
           
            And I continued to experience it all as though I’d never seen it before, like a child seeing and studying the wonder of God’s creation for the first time. I wanted to grab it, inhale it. Capture it! I found it impossible to be satiated by the display of beauty and life bursting forth in awakening after weeks of quiescent rest.
           
            I prayed fervently that I might never lose that feeling; that I might never again look complacently or indifferently upon a tree, a sunset, a quiet flurry of snowflakes or a single grass blade. I wanted to stop, deliberately drink in God’s creation, and be compelled to stand silent—to ponder Him and really know the One responsible for all of that stunning creation.
           
            It was such a perfect time to have a baby. A baby to celebrate the renewal of life! A baby to remind me of God’s promise: that as long as the earth remains, seedtime and harvest shall not fail.
           
            A reminder that God Himself forever remains the same.




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NEXT WEEK: Homecoming…
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Until next week,

Thanks for joining me!

Blessings,

Andrea

Bee on rosea ice plant photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/napdsp/4869835181/">nate2b</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">cc</a>


Orange and red ice plant photo credit: <a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/parksdh/13373523955/">D.H. Parks</a> via <a href="http://photopin.com">photopin</a> <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/">cc</a>

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