Outside

There is something that happened as I leapt into marriage and children at 30.  It was subtle, I didn't see it for a long time, but after awhile it began to wear and show.  In my mood, my claustrophobia, my pulling my hair, my short breaths I realized there was something lacking.  Something that always has been a part of me - outside.

I was spending (and still do) most of my days all wrapped up in walls, breathing this recycled air.

Then there would be a moment, driving home from running errands where the sunset might take my breath away, and I would pull over on the edge of the road to take a picture.  Unsatisfied.  I realize that those sunset moments are just for a moment.  Not always to be captured in a photograph that sits stale in the digital annals of my phone.  Sometimes the Lord has a pretty sunset he just wants to share, with me, with you.

Two evenings ago there was another one of those amazing nights where the sunset was showing off as only a prairie sky can do.  Something beautiful in every direction.  I was driving home and kept looking in every direction as each corner of the sky was just spectacular.  In fact, I was a little concerned that I was being a bad driver with my mind so full of enraptured distraction.

Outside opens my lungs, it opens my eyes, it can pry open my inner life.  Inside, I bumble around doing things, laundry, dishes, kids, school work, etc..

I have said it a million times to myself, but not recently.  God didn't make us to keep us inside four walls.  He made us for outside.  There are times we need shelter, but we are made for outside.