Powerful Symbols

 

I made this Resurrection Garden
during a Circle of Love (widows) meeting
at my church.

Landscapes

Even though I don’t tend to use fresh phrases when I write or speak, they delight me. Therefore, I felt intrigued when I discovered one (“the landscape of life”) someone else had written.

Although I hadn't thought about associating the word landscape with life, I suddenly saw the connection. 

Physical Landscapes

Some of the features in a physical landscape are natural—boulders, mountains, bodies of water, cliffs, etc. Others are added by humans. For example, property owners create whatever “look” pleases them (or they can choose to do nothing).

Case in point: when my husband and I vacationed in Arizona several years ago, we noticed striking differences between the green lawns that were as irrigated and well-tended as golf courses and those that were left in their natural desert-like state. The contrast was even more evident when the lawns were adjacent to each other. Each “look” was beautiful and reflected the preferences of the owners.

Life Landscapes

I suppose some folks, when asked to describe the “landscape of their lives,” might use a fresh phrase such as: 

• “My life looks as barren as the desert.” 
• “My life is as bleak as the Arctic in winter.” 
• “My life is as interesting as the rainforest.” 
• “My life is as lush as an island paradise.” 

Whatever the landscape of our life looks like, we can choose to leave it like it is or enhance it, even if we can’t completely change it. How?

There are some things we could do. 

1. Take a close look at what our life currently looks like.
2. Dream a little about what we’d like it to look like.
3. Calculate the cost involved in changing it. Do we want to invest that much? Will the ROI (Return on Investment) be worth it? 
4. If so, then set to work making the changes we envision. 
5. Enjoy the results of our hard work.

But... the BEST PLAN is to ask God to transform the landscape of our lives. After all, He is the one who can do far more than we can imagine (Ephesians 3:20), even turn wildernesses into gardens (Isaiah 51:3).

Photo by Johnnie Ann Gaskill.

Mess of a Self

I began my March 1, 2019, journal entry with these words:

Off schedule. Frazzled. Ideas popping--way more than I have time to handle. Inspired to write, but too many other tasks, projects, and commitments screaming for attention. Feeling led to write a series of blog posts about some ways to "unpack" the Word. Struggling to find THE BEST way to do that (and just about everything else). Because I'm searching for THE BEST way, I'm delaying doing anything...

I followed those words with these:

O Father, I present my "mess of a self" to You this morning, knowing that You know me fully--far better than I know myself--and yet You love me and are ABLE and WILLING--yes, even EAGER--to transform me.

As I thought about that, the words to the song Something Beautiful popped into my mind. I recognized it as God's way of assuring me that He can and will make something beautiful out of the "mess of a self" that I'm offering Him. He will do the same for you, Dear Reader. Just offer yourself to Him and see what He does!

Little Glories

...transform me, Father,

by the

little glories

of this day.

~David Hazard, p.139 in

I Come Quietly to Meet You 

A New Life

...anyone who belongs to Christ

has become a new person.

The old life is gone;

a new life has begun!

--2 Corinthians 5:17, New Living Translation

Out of Great Darkness

Incredible Transformation

I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love butterflies, but I can think of a whole lot of folks who don’t get excited about caterpillars—from whence butterflies come! Compared to caterpillars, butterflies are so colorful. And, unlike slow-crawling caterpillars, butterflies flit freely from place to place, making it hard to keep your eyes on them, especially when watching through the tiny viewfinder on a camera, as I did one afternoon.

For nearly an hour, I tried to get good photos of those lovely but elusive creatures as they sipped nectar from the blooms on the lantana bushes out by the garden. By the time I’d locate one of the dozen or more butterflies in the viewfinder, compose the shot, and press the shutter button, the butterfly would have fluttered away to a new spot, leaving me with photos of orange lantana blooms—minus the butterflies or, at best, half of one! Only rarely did I get a full, sharply focused, beautifully framed shot of a butterfly.

Now, if I’d been trying to take pictures of pokey caterpillars, I’d have had plenty of time to get the perfect shot! But I wanted pictures of butterflies not caterpillars.

Why am I so drawn to butterflies? For their beauty, obviously, and for the way they move so freely. I also enjoy butterflies because they remind me that change, dramatic change, is not only possible, but it’s expected. That’s exciting!

When I’m looking at a butterfly, I find it hard to believe what it once was. It bears almost no resemblance to its former self, to its former way of life. Only the Creator Himself could make such a change possible.

Scientists have a big word for that remarkable change: metamorphosis, which comes from a Greek word meaning “to transform.” Transformation is sometimes subtle--almost imperceptible, actually--as when tadpoles ever so slowly begin to look like the frogs they will one day be. Such slow transformation is certainly amazing; yet it seems less thrilling than the miraculous change that takes place in secret between the time the caterpillar enshrouds itself inside a chrysalis and then emerges days later as a butterfly.

Because I’m awed by butterflies, my mind latched onto something I heard a motivational speaker say. “Your body ‘morphs’ itself every seven years. So should you!”

How incredible! Imagine the body replacing all of its cells every seven years, getting rid of the old ones, producing new ones, changing constantly in order to remain at peak performance. WOW!

Since the Creator designed the body to miraculously renew itself continuously and subtly, surely He intended the mind, soul and spirit to renew regularly, too! After all, the Bible says, “Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think” (Romans 12:2, New Living Translation, NLT).

When you and I start thinking right, we’ll start acting right and talking right, as well. Imagine how we’ll feel when we no longer resemble our old sinful selves. Incredible, huh?

© 2005 by Johnnie Ann Burgess Gaskill. For permission to use, please contact her.