Looking Out the Window

Its nap time.  Such a happy time for a momma.  Time to catch up on the laundry, the dishes, maybe even get a jump start on dinner.  And maybe have a few minutes to sit down, enjoy another cup of coffee and relax.  I'm in the relax part of this nap that will most likely be over for one sassy lass any minute.

The coffee is a little cold from sitting on the table waiting for what seems like minutes but has really been hours.  The mornings go so fast.  I've already microwaved it three times.  But it still tastes okay (the bar is set pretty low on days like these).

I'm sitting at the kitchen table and in front of me I have a huge picture window.  It is probably 15 feet across and four feet high.  It take up almost an entire wall in our house and it is one of the reasons I love this house.  Out the window, I see blue skies and towering pines and golden maples that look like the sun decided to up and grow into a tree.  Occasionally a bird flies by, a squirrel scampers up a tree, a dog barks somewhere up the road.  It is so beautiful.  So peaceful.  It helps make the coffee taste better.  It puts a smile on my lips and a pleasant tune in my mind.  The beauty surrounding me makes it a little easier to breath.  Full, satisfying breaths.  The kind that make you feel whole.  Looking out my window right now it is hard to imagine there are such things as pain and sadness and hate in this world.

But then I fire up the trusty old Mac and glance over the headlines at CNN.  And the whole world is turned on its head.  There is nothing but pain and sadness and hate there.  There are children killing children and people dying, and abductions and beatings and suicides and wars and it is all too much.  I look back out the window, but this time I notice the brown curling edges of the leaves, the noises of the traffic, the dirt on the glass.  The world has marred my view. 

But I'm sitting here with goosebumps, thinking how I never want my kids to leave the house again and feeling really crummy about all the world going to hell in a handbag.  It is making me mad, all this violence and hate.  How it destroys everything.  People, towns, days, years.  And I think about that poor woman in California who committed suicide on the one year anniversary of her son's suicide.  And I can't let go.  Not of her pain.  Or mine. 

And I look out the window and I'm angry and sad and shaken by this world that takes so much away.  It steals joy and wears away our souls until we are bare and worn and weak.  But there is more.  I feel it in my soul.  This world steals and beats and spreads its black wings out, but there are places it cannot touch.  I will not let it cover me and take away truth.

Because even in the darkest hour there is hope.  And even in the most broken lives there is beauty.  And for as much hate as we see everywhere, I know love abounds.  And I choose hope.  I choose beauty.  I choose love.