It’s a brand new sparkly year. I’m eager to get back to writing again. We’re fresh off of a 2-1/2 week vacation. One where I didn’t write. Didn’t work. I hardly took any photos on my phone. I just enjoyed the break.
I wrote this on Sunday night during our flight home across the Pacific. I suppose I want to be better this year about simply writing. Not overthinking. Not always posting words accompanied by a study (although that’s always where God speaks to me most). But to be better about letting the words tumble out as they may.
In this case, they did at 30,000 feet. I didn’t have my Bible. Or my journal. Or a camera to document what I saw. Or a laptop to write it out. So I typed it on my phone. Happy New Year, friends.
We are somewhere over the pacific. More than halfway home. But the math hurts my brain. I’m not sure how much further we have to go. So I push play on another movie on the iPad Josh loaded up for me. And put on the headphones he gifted me for Christmas (because I kept stealing his). And then I look out the window. And I can’t look away. In awe of the vast night time glory that fills my 12″ wide frame. It represents thousands of miles of ocean that I have the privilege of seeing in distinct cinematic perfection. The type of low-light glory that my phone couldn’t possibly capture. In fact, it doesn’t. I tried. Twice, actually.
It’s an interesting thing existing between two worlds. Above the popcorn clouds that fill the horizon below me, yet below the stars the sparkle above me. Some sparkle brighter than others. I know that scientifically the dimmer stars are further away… But I can’t help but want to be the brighter one.
This isn’t normal. This flying thing. And yet… It is. I am a frequent flier so it’s definitely my normal. But I’m enamored by the fact that I can look out my window and see something that the technology within my immediate reach cannot capture. Every single time I fly I wonder about heaven. Heaven above and earth below, they say. Is that a verse? If it is, I can’t think of it. I need to look it up tomorrow. And if it is, then this is as close to heaven as I will get on this side of … Well … Heaven.
Twice on this trip I’ve dreamed of Shawna. I think I’ve only had one (maybe two) other dreams of her in the last two years. But I had two in the last number of days. In both of them, tears fell. Lots of them. And, both times, I woke up in the midst of the worst kind of dreaming grief. I actually checked my pillow to see if I was crying in my sleep.
But I digress. And try to reel this rambling of words back in by staring back out of my 30,000 foot window.
And all I can think, as I look at the type of beautiful glory that this photographer is physically unable to photograph, is: LORD, may my life mean something.
LORD, may my legacy linger long with Your glory. The type of glory that no photograph can do justice of. The kind of glory that changes the very core of a person.
And, LORD, may I represent those I love well. Not just Shawna. But every single person close to me. May I represent them well now, while I have life and breath.
May I love well. And live well.
Tonight, as I look out this window of soft moon glow and clouds faded into a foggy horizon line… LORD I pray that my life would somehow be that for You. That my story would be a foggy line, mixed in with everyone I love, and everyone who loves me. But may Your glory be clear. As clear as the line where the fog ends. And the stars distinctly do their thing so far beyond my reach.
LORD. May Your glory reach beyond me.