Why don't the mountains make me cry no more?
They don't sing the way they did before
They're just piles of stone as dead as bones
Like corpses on a field of war
And they just don't make me cry no more.
Andrew Peterson
(a favorite singer/songwriter of our family)
The Last Frontier
Listen Here.
Tonight, after 23 hours of traveling, Clay picked up Joy and me at the Denver airport. Celtic music wafting out of the speakers, we turned towards the mountains as we entered the freeway and the stunning golden lining the horizon with the backdrop of stormy purple clouds made us wonder why we ever leave our beloved Colorado. The music and sky were a symphony to beauty.
It brought to mind these thoughts I shared another time when looking up to my beloved Rockies. Off to sleep now but oh so glad to be home.
Music is the poetry of our generation, the voice of our fears, thoughts, emotions, giving reality to what we store in our hearts. And so, this song reflected my own, and Joy's, heart's words. And so slowly we are taking some time to come back to life.
Sitting on the front porch, sipping tea in the late afternoon caught Joy and me creaking slowly in our white rocking chairs and trying to breathe in life. "Mama, I was so tired and worn to the bone when I came home from school this year, that I couldn't even feel how pretty everything was any more. It was like I was in a fog."
Remember when, as a little girl, you would see a shooting star or sit by the firelight of a bonfire and roast marshmallows or catch lightening bugs in the early dark of a summer's night and all was delight to your soul. Just being alive was exciting and every day had the possibility of something wonderful?
Taking the temperature of our souls is essential to staying alive. I have felt so crowded in my life that I have hardly had room to breathe. Sometimes I know that the sunrise is beautiful, but my heart doesn't sing when I see it anymore. This is the moment I say, "No matter what, I will take time for rest for my soul, time alone, time away from machines, time for music and sleeping, and not answering the phone. Time for walks and lots of hot drinks, or a hot bath, or a moonlit walk under the stars...
I have gathered delights that help me restore my own heart to wonder because I want to appropriately be childlike before Him to marvel, to breathe, to be amazed.
What helps you restore? What brings you back to your old true self? Keep stock of your heart now, so that you may stay alive to God.
"Guard your heart, for from it flow the springs of life." Proverbs 4:23