Sunshine and piercing blue
Standing on safe ground beneath a cloud that threatens a crashing,
Bellowing,
Earth-soaking storm
I think of a God outside of time
and space
and all constraint
The God of thunder
The God of daisies
The God of power and violence
The God of humor and beauty
Sheltering in dry safety from the wind that brings a splattering,
Rumbling,
Earth-soaking storm
I think of a God whose power,
When loosed, is fearsome
I think of a God whose creativity,
When spoken is refreshing.
I've just been sneaking a few quiet moments on the back deck and, as often happens when I take three minutes to look up instead of gloomily down, I am awed by the sky just overhead. Our city in Alberta sits at the feet of strong and towering mountains to the west; it is surrounded on all other sides by vast prairie. We have a BIG sky.
The neighborhood where my family has settled is on the east side of town, fringed by wheat fields and far-as-the-eye-can-see open land. I still catch my breath each time I see the striking dandilion yellow of a canola field, backdropped by the fierce purple-grey of a thunderstorm.
Today, I am taken with the comically large white mountain of clouds that hovers above my head. My mind wanders to last night's skies of pink and orange--vast slashes and streaks of chaotic cloud scurrying around a setting sun, strutting like they had something to do with warding off the storm that had been threatening all day. Today is a different story entirely: all is baby blue and pure-as-marshmallows white.
Sometimes the skies roil with menacing blackness, lightening stabbing and thrusting its' way through curtains of thick moisture. The sunsets (and possibly the sunrises, too; I sleep far too late to know for sure!) are as varied as we're told one raindrop is from another. The clouds are always in attendance, sometimes gliding, sometimes lurching their path across the face of the sun.
If the clouds, a simple collection of moisture and such, can be so varied, so startling in their diversity and everyday newness, imagine how much more there is to the character and quality of the God who made them than we have yet seen. Imagine, too, the pleasure He takes in the differences He's fashioned in them. And in you and I.
Our skies, here at home, are never the same one day to the next. Like their Creator, they sometimes show strength and ferocity; they often reveal unfathomable tenderness, solid gentleness, if that makes any sense. Even at their most tenuous, where they sit whispy and light, they leave me with the impression that, if I could just get to them, I could settle into them--like lovers into a hamock (well...I've always thought that may be a lot trickier than it sounds and I imagine I'd be the one, tubby butt over ears, landing with a distinctly un-romantic thud on the porch boards...but you get the idea...).
The sky and its' cloud artists tell a little of what God is like. They express a lot about what we are like.
Some of us know the ease of resting effortlessly in a hot summer sky. Life is trouble free for us, and it is easy to reflect the white light of a noon sun. Some of us mirror well the brilliant colors of a setting sun. We are lively and vibrant--even brash!
Some of us wrap ourselves firmly around unpredictable storm skies. some of us are caught in the storm itself; we're assaulted by crushing winds and threatened by angry bolts of danger and loss. Some of us show up just after the storm, soothing and tender, allowing room for hope. There is always hope. Always. What would we do without the rainbow-framed skies after the storm that promise an end to struggle?
Some of us take on crazy shapes--we're turtles one minute and sailing ships the next. We remind our world that we are born to create and to flex and to draw the attention of others to the Maker of the Sky.
While I sit on the porch (sans hamock and successfully avoiding the threat of bruised limbs) I'll take a moment to consider how truly remarkable our God is. And I'll take a few to remind myself of the many ways that you are like Him.
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