A light layer of white, frosty snow covered everything this morning, so that the world was diffused and quiet. It seemed like it continued right into the sky, making the sunrise's colors into cool pastels of blue, pink, and yellow. But the space in between was in perfectly sharp relief - every bare, lacy tree limb, bush, and even the white truck in front of me on the road. We drove into the sun, and I just hoped that truck wouldn't make any sudden moves, because I couldn't see a thing in the piercing orange light.

It reminded me of the painting "The Song of the Lark", one of my favorites back home at the Art Institute of Chicago.



I want so much. Is it perhaps too much? So many women have worked their whole lives -- in the field, in the cottage, bearing children, raising children. Lives pass in simplicity, full...but full of work that on the surface does not seem momentous or directly related to the coming of the Kingdom or the exercise of one's deepest giftings. And yet, the value in these lives of peace and contentment surpasses, in the unseen and eternal, those lives of high achievement and visible effectivness. Am I right? And should I so fight within my own soul to place and find myself always within the sphere of overt usefulness and Kingdom-bringing? Perhaps what is overt and seen would asuage my flesh, but what is humble and unseen would propell my spirit into a maturity that will follow me into the years after these, those years that are most important...when I'm face to face with God, ruling and judging in agreement with Him, enjoying His presence, living the real life of real life.