Known

There are many things in life that have the ability to move you. A child interacting with their mother, bubbles on a warm summer's day, the final setting of the sun as it comes to a close. 

Different things move different people. 

For me, it is nature, God's creation is what moves me the most. The remains of how God intended His earth to be. 

Flowers, constellations, clear blue skies, fields of yellow, gold and green, cloud-watching, tumbling waves on the ocean, towering trees overhead, forrests of entangled branches, freshly cut grass, the intricacy of a flowerhead. 

It urges me to interact with it. I imagine running through the fields in floral dresses, brushing past the flowers, my breath catching on the breeze and my hair flying in each direction. It urges me to make daisy chains and flower crowns and drink iced caramel lattes with my body nuzzled into the earth's floor. It makes me want to read novels and His word and write down dreams in gold paged notebooks. To sing intricate melodies into the spaces around me and to worship Him from the depths of my soul. To listen to beautiful piano music through my headphones and to dip my toes in the sparkling sea. To run away from the foams and waves and to skim stones into the ocean and watch it jump the sea's surface. It urges me to dance upon the sand barefoot and gaze longingly into the horizon. To dream dreams and think lovely thoughts about the future, the past the present and to long for adventures throughout the world, searching for things that move me, that inspire me to be in awe of Him. To encounter moments that leave me speechless, breathless and in search of the right words to describe its beauty. Word that come back void because they cannot even compute or comprehend just how incredible the sights are. 

Lord, in everything, teach me to find its beauty. Teach me to look at the world through a lense of compassion and understanding. Teach me how to be like you, to have and experience the greatest love the world has ever known. You are my Father and You care for me. You are my Father who not only resides in heaven but also here on earth. There in the constellations, there in the spaces that they occupy, there in the ocean depths and below and there in the sky where I stare into when I talk to Him. There in the dry seasons, there when life gets too much to bear, there when I feel like my prayers hit a wall, when I feel alone, when I feel empty. 

He's as real to me as my hand is when it holds another that I love. Real as it is when I raise it in surrender to His will and His way. As I raise towards Him as I reach out for Him and as I long for more of Him. Oh to look at You, stained, drenched, dripping of my sin but you, there, staring right back at me and you define me as my sin, though my sin is there you wash me clean and I am unstained and You are perfect and I am in awe once again.

His creation captivates me. Leaves speechless, breathless for He has captured my heart once again.

I am not entitled to feel or wallow in my guilt nor my shame, I was born to be free, to express myself and who You are in me and through my life. To step into freedom and  to run headfirst into the unknown because with You I don't need to impress, I don't need to filter, I don't need to pretend. I long to be real, authentic and honest and gracious to You and to Your people. With You, I am so free and just like nature You call me beautiful and loved and Your opinion of me is the only one that matters. With You I am wanted, I am cherished, I am loved and I am known. And that is more than enough for me.