Simplicity

I am beginning to learn

that it is the sweet, simple things of life
which are the real ones after all.

--Laura Ingalls Wilder

The sunlight skipped across the waves created by the brisk Kansas breeze. It looked as though God had tossed pebbles of illumination from the heavens onto the marsh's surface, creating concentric circles of brilliance as the day slowly ticktocked into night.

Several months ago, I watched the sun rise on the Atlantic Ocean, and I was awed by the vastness of God's creation. This shoreline at the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge certainly doesn't have the immensity of a vista of ocean that stretches as far as the eye can see. It doesn't roar with crashing waves. Rather it's more like the silent sweep of a minute hand on a clock dial as it ticks the seconds from the day.

Here, it is not so much the enormity of the water, but the vastness of the Kansas sky. After a gloomy afternoon, the sun colors the underside of the clouds, giving a King Midas touch to the end of the day.

Along the shore, scattered feathers serve as a reminder of how quickly life can change.

It is a cautionary tale, I suppose, and a silent prayer to appreciate the small moments of everyday.

There is beauty in the bravado of a concert of crashing waves along the Atlantic Ocean. But there is also beauty in quiet.

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations.
I will be exalted in the earth.

--Psalm 46: 9-11

And this place is quiet, pierced not by the music of waves, but by the call of birds as they return to the marsh. As the sun sinks onto the western horizon, the sandhill cranes make dots and dashes in the clouds as sunset writes a Morse code end to the day.

Father, I praise You

for providing moments of illumination
that encourage me in my walk.

**

Today I am linked to Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday at Michelle's Graceful: Faith in the Everyday.