Originally published Thursday, 28 February 2013.
This post first appeared at You Are My Girls.com. Click here to learn more about Jennifer.
We head back from the snow through bleak stretches of plain, flat, brown. I try to keep my eyes focused, clear, although I am tired from getting up early and this landscape is the exact opposite of inspiring. We have spent a chunk of days with friends in Utah skiing, and now we are caravanning with friends back to California, swapping kids to keep it fun and make the drive less grueling. The kids are watching a movie in the back seat and Justin is taking a brief nap. The road is long and straight, and I follow my friend's Volvo in earnest, my coffee cup gripped fast.
I am so sleepy. How am I going to stay focused on the road?
Oh, Father, wake me up. I love how you see me, how you care about the little things. How you are here with me, while my fingers grip the wheel and my head feels heavy. Give me eyes to see you. Give me eyes to fall afresh in love with you.
I think about the landscape through which the Israelites walked. I have seen that land with my own eyes, my feet on that dry ground, clusters of green amid wide swatches of brown, yellow, and gray. Nevada is not Israel, but it reminds me of the variety of landscape this God of mine has created. He knows what bleakness looks like. And desolation. He knows exhaustion, temptation, ugliness, sorrow, and pain.
And He also knows beauty--His breath blowing sweetness and color and vitality through nothingness to create light and life.
Blow through me, Father. Kiss my face. Let your light shine here. Lift up my eyes. Show me what you see. Show me, even in the seeming bleakness, you are present--ever-watching, ever-present, ever-faithful.
And girls, lean in a little bit closer now, because I want to tell you something so beautiful that our Father did.
He opened my eyes. The land--once dreary and desolate--changed colors.
I can hardly keep my eyes on the once-boring road now because there is light shining on those distant hills like rays of gold from heaven. Stone gray bears shimmers of green, and there are golden sparkles dancing through sunlight. My dirty windshield frames the most glorious beauty, my eyes now blind to the grime around the edges, caked with dirt and crusted snow.
My eyes are focused now, the Father giving me eyes to see His hand sweeping beauty through land I couldn't imagine ever perceiving as beautiful.
Keep doing it, Father. Keep giving me your eyes. Let your light shine down, illuminate the darkness. Set the captives free. Let our heads be lifted, our eyes focused on what is most true. Give us hearts full of song. Let us sing your truth, your laughter filling the sad echoes in our hearts.
Your daughters call out, one voice now. One voice. We trust you and need to see. Give us new eyes. Father. Our old ways don't work any more.
Do you know how I love how we are all here together, gathered up, as His girls? Do you know how I am so grateful you are here and that I love to pray for you?
How do you need God to come for you now? How do you need Him to give your heart, wherever you are, new eyes to see?
So grateful for you,
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