Reminders of Grace
Canon 5D Mark ll, 100mm 2.8 macro, 2.8 aperture, 1/50 shutter, 250 ISO
It was a difficult day, and I didn’t wear it well. Not a shining day for me. Worrying about finances again, I lost my focus. I could feel my heart drifting from dependence on God to prideful stubbornness. Somehow I was going to fix this. Anger was building up and shutting my heart down.
When I got home, I grabbed my camera and practically ran down the path to the back pasture. My heart had already begun to turn from anger to desperation. Prayers trickling, then finally rushing like a waterfall to the Father. “Please help me find gratitude”, I begged. I knew it was the secret to my freedom. I needed to move from selfishness to worship. From self-pity to thankfulness. There I would find rest and repentance. Eyes that are focused inward cannot find the light.
He began to speak. Again, through the flowers. The little flowers. Their tiny faces and voices singing of the faithfulness of God. This God who cares about the details. I looked around me and I was overwhelmed. They were everywhere, the delicate purple ones, the white blackberry blossoms preparing to bring sweetness to summer. Over there, the tiniest of the tiniest yellow blossoms, springing up like joy manifested. Such sweetness. Such glory.
With each extravagance revealed, I am humbled and ashamed. I had been ungrateful, again. I ask for forgiveness as I see the truth.
Gratitude rushes in like a cool river in the parched places. The eyes of my heart no longer clouded, I find perspective. The God of the universe is faithful and true. And beautiful. He is to be worshiped, for He is God and there is no other. I open my clenched hands and worship. I can feel the life flowing back into me again. I am back at the beginning. Humbled by the faces of the little flowers. Grateful. All is set right again.
Psalm 73:22,23 ~ “When my heart was grieved and my spirit embittered, I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you.”
Psalm 73:25,26 ~”Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”
Heavenly Delicacies
5 Comments
Thank you so much for writing so personally about yourself.
i love your pictures but haven’t really read much, just looking at the pictures.
I was reading this post for the first time today and I started crying halfway through your second paragraph. I felt like what you feel and various events in the week have brought on a lot of frustrations as well.
Thank you so much for bringing my attention back to God and giving me the right perspective and I have indeed been trying hard to do things myself. Your simple message and moving words helped me to see what many sermons could not. Thank you again!
Jesse,
How very kind of you to respond and comment so openly as well. I am so grateful this blog was helpful to you. Thank you for you comment.
~ Mary Anne
opening ‘clenched’ hearts and hands is the core of worship.
your words are so beautifully right – and so are you (especially that beautiful part).
what a comforting post. Gosh you have a gift when you write. I love it. These flowers are so focused, being focused on God instead of ourselves is oh so good.
aww Mary Anne, you have such a heart, and such a big gift of ministering to anyone thru your words, your own worship, your eye for the smallest detail! Thankyou for writing out what I feel alot…most days it seems recently. I appreciate your transparency and your ability to bring worship back into your life when you are scared and desperate. Thankyou for the encouragement. As a self employed artist, it gets hard under all the financial burdens to keep on being creative…and yet that is what God still wants me to do. I know it, or would already have given up and gone back to a minimal life which was not embracing my passion. Thanks for being so real and you are such a special gift to everyone who’s life is touched by you.