I felt the need to be up early today. Seems to happen on the days you could stay snuggled in the bed. Thought about going for a drive but took a detour and stopped by a lake. Didn’t stay long as it was cold and honestly a little creepy with lots of cars and no people to be seen lol. That was my first view. My second view was seeing a peaceful lake, birds chirping, water slowly lapping against the rocks. Ducks and geese bustling about for their morning walk, a crispness to the air as the sun was shining. The geese nor the sky not showing any signs of the pending snow. The stillness of winter, the unhindered view, a peaceful moment in time. Makes me think of all the views we miss everyday. The ones that don’t catch our attention, the ones we take for granted, the ones that bring that slow smile to your face and warm your heart. Even the views that enrage us for injustice that we seem to not be able to change, the views of the hurts of the world. So many different things to process so many different views.
Then I thought about how I view myself and how I view others. How I view my life and what view I see from others. Sometimes the view of myself is unkind, critical and well I will admit negative. I view and judge myself before anyone has a chance. Kind of like the cars but no people I mentioned at the lake. We see what we want others to see, we project and we critique, but sometimes we miss that whole picture. We don’t see what it took for us to be where we are right now. The scars, the trials and triumphs. Just like the shore of the lake, the water changes it shape as life changes our shape. But the tide brings many changes to our lives. Some are slow and easy and some are so overwhelming you feel you can’t breathe. Like the trees in this picture, our roots go beyond the shallows. They nourish us even when our limbs are tired, when they no longer produce fruit, they keep is steady and grounded.
See how the lake mirrors it’s surroundings? Kind of like we do in life. We mirror culture and expectations, other people and outward appearances. What if we took that stone and made some ripples across that water, make our mirror look differently? What if we looked in the mirror differently? What if we looked beyond the trappings of what other think and we listen to what we think and feel? Do you think the trees worry about the shadow they cast be it thick or thin? They stand strong through the storms they face, they are dependable, they are mighty. Kind of like you and I. We all cast different shadows, we all have different storms that have bent us and weathered us. We still stand. When we quit standing, when our bough breaks do we pull ourselves up and become stronger or do we let the self doubt rot us from the inside? There will always be things we want to change it could be how we look, our hairstyle, our attitudes. But who we are is the essence of our being. The outward bark may be peeling, the leaves sparse or in abundance, we may have a few birds nests in our minds and just be different from the rest of the forest. I am more than the outward leaves. I am strong as an oak, but may bend like a pine ladden with snow, my heart like a sappling but my body like a maple tree—sticky and sweet, annoying yet you want to see me again. We all are different from different points of view. We all are more than the first glance, we all are deeper than the first view. We don’t have to be the same in the forest of life. I am thinking I like to be different than the rest of the forest. So this picture may look simple in nature but it made me think beyond that initial view. What view do you see? Life mirroring the next person? Feeling the need to sacrifice the view just to crowd in with everyone else? Do you see your reflection or just what others see? All of this from one picture. One thought, one moment, one view. A moment at a peaceful lake reminding me that I am more than a reflection, that I matter, that the God who formed this world formed me and because of that I am worthy. Worthy to stand strong, to realize I have been blessed beyond measure. I have been blessed to be a mom and my body was amazing, to have my family that gave me the grounded foundation. To have been called to be a nurse. Realizing that I have loved and even though I have been hurt, to feel the joy of love, the butterflies, the romance, to feel the sting of heartbreak have all brought me to this moment in life. A moment to stand on a lake in the cool morning air, the ground beneath my feet, the Carolina Blue sky to open up my mind to hopes and dreams and possibilities, the lake that shows my reflection. A reflection that can show me moments to reflect on my life choices and yet opens up to reflect on my future. To realize my past is the current that has carried me this far, the ripples are just that, the ripples of life changes. The trees stretching up to the sky remind me of reaching forward, reaching up and out. No one is meant to be a lone tree, but it is ok to make your own garden, your own lakeside view. It is ok to see things from a different view. You may look at this and see your own thoughts and that is fantastic. You may see me or yourself in one way but somebody else likes the view of you or me. No need to change the view but appreciate the simplicity of who we are. It all depends on what we want to see and if we look beyond that first view. What is your view? What do you want to see and what do you want others to see in you? Stop just once today and look around at something you see everyday and look at it through a different lens, a different point of view. I will bet you see something you never saw before. A different view if we choose.
