The little light...

It sits silently beside the roaring ocean under an enveloping sky. It's tiny, unnoticed by most everyone who passes by it. There is a path beside it, that offers a smooth walkway to the waters beside it, but those who walk on the path will most likely not notice it; the tiny light beside the noisy waves.
To miss the small messenger would be all too easy.

But all day long as the sun shines down, the light is being fed. And all day long while the waves beat the shore and the coastal breezes blow, the light holds tightly to the place where it has been placed. And in doing so, the light is fully prepared to do what it is designed to do; shine when darkness comes.

I'm envious of the little light, not in a sinful sort of way, but rather in a "oh what a sweet place to be" sort of way. This little light overlooks the shores of Rosarito Beach, with a mountain island in its view and a majestic sky overhead. Nothing is expected of this little light, except --- that it light the pathway when darkness comes. The views that it enjoys each and every day are magnificent, the quiet droning of the waves a constant reminder of a great, huge, good God.
The light from the sun will feed the little light beside the waters all throughout the day. The little light doesn't do anything to acquire the energy to glow in the darkness, other than receive its power from the sun overhead.

We are fashioned to be like the little light. There is no need to be envious, for we/i are much like the little light.
We are designed to draw strength from the Son. His power can and will flow through us, lighting the path for both ourselves and for those around us. We simply need to sit still with Him. If the little light by the sea did not sit still under the sun, it would not have the power to shine when darkness comes.

And so it is with us.

If we do not sit still with the Son, we will not have the power to shine when darkness comes.
(oh we might "endure" the darkness, but will we  have the ability to shine)

The little light by the sea is so peaceful.
I know it is a simple stick of bamboo with a solar light atop it, stuck into a flowerpot on a patio at the Robinson's beach home. But isn't it beautiful how a silent tiny object can remind my soul of a monumental truth ---- a truth that in the busyness of life, can too easily be forgotten.

We are tiny.
We have been placed by the Father above.
He will pour out His power on us, He will strengthen us.
He is always over us, we are not alone.

The vast world around us makes us look insignificant, but we are not. We are called to do one thing. Shine where we have been placed with the light that comes from our Father.

I'm reminded --- the little light does not yell to those passing by, it gives no commands or requirements of those who walk near it. It is not called to orchestrate the waves it overlooks, organize the sunset it witnesses each evening, or direct the activities of those on the path beside it. It is simply called to shine when darkness comes.

Yes - we have many tasks we must accomplish each day, we can not and should not ignore the realities of being productive and beneficial in the world where we have been placed.

But why is it that we can all too easily forget to sit under the Son and get our strength from Him.
That would be the clever plan of the darkness, the dark one, the enemy of the sun, the enemy of the Son; to keep us too busy --- to sit with the Son and be strengthened.

I love the bold reminder the little, quiet light beside the sea shares with my soul.

I am tiny - I have been placed by my Father - He will pour out His power on me if I will sit in His Light - He will never leave me. Without Him, i can not shine. With Him, i can.

"This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all." 1 John 1:5

(photo taken at Rosarita Beach, Mexico)

Our Skin is the boundary ...

Today, I will walk about with skin on - and it will define the boundary between me and what is around me. The same will be true for you. The edge of your skin is the edge of you. Your words may travel further, the fragrance of you may exceed your borders (hopefully it's a sweet fragrance). :) But the physical reality of you will not go past your boundary of physical skin.
And you are fully equipped to meet the day, because God is within you. He has promised us, that for those of us who call Him our Savior, His Holy Spirit lives within us and is present with us at all times. Our "perfection" is not a condition of His presence. After all, His good presence in us has little to do with us, but has everything to do with His grace towards us. All we are asked to do is believe and receive. Then once that has happened, He's there, with us, always, everywhere. Whether we acknowledge and remember or not, He does, He keeps His promise.

So today, the boundary of my skin and your skin, marks the edge of "us" in this world. The presence of the Holy Spirit in us will enable to meet the day and guide us through. Oh how much sweeter the walk is when we pause to remember, HE is with us, He is enabling us, He is guiding us, He is. When we stop relying on ourselves to accomplish what needs to be done, and instead we rely on Him to enable us to accomplish it, there is beauty in the outcome.

Learning to live in our skin with the Holy Spirit, our Father God, giving the perfect pressure from the inside so we can withstand the pressures put on us from the outside ---- is an art, a skill, an obedience. It's the way of Peace.
It becomes exhausting and overwhelming when we try and use our skin to counter the pressures of this world. We're not equipped to do it, we're simply not strong enough. We need someone to save us from the heavy weight of life this side of Heaven. And so, He gives us a Savior; the One who can easily counter the pressure of this world with His powerful presence within us.

So today, you and I are equipped to meet the pressures of this world and it's many demands on us, at the boundary of our skin, when we allow the Holy Spirit to reside in us and apply the counter pressure.

My Steve loves to dive in deep waters. He's ok to stay at the surface if he must, but given a squeak of a chance, he'll go deep. He has explained to me the pressure one feels as they descend, the water has power and is pushing in on the divers skin; if not countered with pressure from within the diver, the water can and will crush them. So as divers descend to the deep, they must pause periodically to equalize the pressure. If they do not, they will experience severe pain, and their dive will end prematurely. So the diver must manage the pressure the waters are inflicting on them with the pressure they can build up on the inside of them. Likewise, when the diver is ascending from a deep dive, they must pause to equalize the lessened pressure on their body, or they will be in trouble with what diver's call the "bends" (also called decompression sickness). If not managed and attended to carefully, it can prove fatal. It is that serious --- the pressures from within and from without must be equalized --- or it can kill the diver.

The same is true with life on the surface. The pressures we feel, the weight of all that comes at us, well, it's more than our skin is equipped to hold up against. We sometimes foolishly think we are suppose to be strong and endure it on our own. After all, it seems those around us are managing it well. But in reality, we don't know what is going on inside their skin, we don't know if medications are needed in order to help them "get through the day". We don't know if their personal relationships are shattered or their physical health is suffering. No one, no one is immune to the pressure and no one, no one is equipped to handle it alone.

We need a God to counter the pressure. He knew we would need Him. He knew the pressure would be too great. He tells us He will carry our burdens, He will give us His strength, He will Shepherd us through the valley.
And so He gives us His Holy Spirit, to live within us, to counter the external pressure with His great, loving internal presence.

It's one of the reasons we can sometimes fall apart when we try and look at tomorrow and examine "how" we will ever manage it. We are equipped, with Holy Spirit presence to counter the pressure of today. Not tomorrow, not yet. We might imagine our "skin" in the tomorrows, and it all seems too heavy, too much, simply impossible. "How will I ever manage?", "How can we possibly?", "What will I do if?" These are weighty, heavy, unbearable pressures to look ahead to ---- because while you might try and imagine your "skin" there --- you can not factor in accurately the Holy Spirit pressure/presence that will be given to you THEN. We cave in on ourselves when we try and imagine ourselves there. But we can stop the madness, when we are tempted to worry over tomorrow ---- and remind ourselves that, God will be with us then. He is our loving Shepherd, He will know exactly how to maneuver through the terrain of tomorrow, if we simply obey Him today.

My skin is the boundary of me today. It's the line between the outside pressures and the inward countering of my Holy God. God can and will perfectly equalize the pressure placed on me, with His powerful presence today.
My skin will be the boundary of me tomorrow. God will be there as well.

Thank you God!


Luke 12:12 ..."for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what you should say."
Matthew 6:34  "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."
Act 1:8  "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

(photo taken in Kenya of Maggie's hands and an orphaned child's hands by me)

Pure white forgiveness...

 

My small part of the world is covered in white pureness. It’s mesmerizing. I know our friends to the north enjoy it every year, but for those of us in Georgia, this is a treat, a gift, a chance to think on things not so common to our world.

We might get a couple of inches of snow each winter --- not enough to cover everything. But this snow – has covered everything. And oddly enough, it has spoken to my soul.

And so as I woke yesterday morning, to this wintry world of white -- I pondered ---

The snow that covers the ground --- fell one flake at a time --- and blanketed the dirt of our little world with pure whiteness.

The blood of our Savior ---- fell one drop at a time --- and covered the sins of our lives with pure white forgiveness.

Oh how the pureness of the snow draws my soul to the purity of our Savior.

It doesn’t matter how dirty the ground is underneath the snow. Whether it’s slippery mud or rocky terrain – the snow has completely covered it.

It may be hard smooth concrete that is swept daily and kept clean by the sure wisp of a broom, still, the snow has covered it over.

It may be the dog’s favorite laying spot on the lawn, where he keeps his favorite chew toys and makes a mess of things, the snow has covered it over.

It may be the compost pile at the edge of the yard, where decaying foliage, broken eggshells, and rotting fruit peels are wasting away, the snow has completely covered it.

It’s a visual picture of the spiritual reality of our Father’s love for us isn’t it?

Mistakes made that left life in shambles, He covers them over with His grace.

Poor decisions that led to much pain, He covers them over with His love.

Dirty life messes made in our attempts to do it our own way, apart from Him -- He covers, forgives, and is even willing to restore, if we ask Him.

The snow covering my world this morning stirs my soul to thank my Abba. For yes, He is that mighty in my life. Where I have made a mess, He covers it with His goodness.

That does not mean the consequences vanish. No – the results of my choices must be dealt with. But instead, it means that Christ’s gift on the cross has saved me from paying the full penalty of my sins. Oh how undeserving I am. Oh how Holy He is.

Yesterday we went for a walk in the white wonderland.  I laid down in that beautiful snow ---- made snow angels --- and thanked my Father once again, for his pure white forgiveness. There’s something childlike and very right about laying in the snow, resting in it’s softness, facing the sky above --- laying in the white snow forced my eyes to look UP.

We grown-ups spend too much time looking around for something we think we need or looking down to watch where we are going. Looking for our keys, or shoes, or children, we’re so focused.  Yesterday the simplicity of laying in the pure white snow and looking up – gave new perspective. As I waved my arms and moved my legs in the powdery gift of whiteness, I stayed my eyes on what was above. And I felt like a child again ---- His child. It felt so right.

The snow --- fell one flake at a time --- and has blanketed the dirt with pure whiteness.

My Savior’s blood ---- fell one drop at a time --- and covered my sins with pure white forgiveness.

Oh how the pureness of the snow draws my soul to the purity of my Savior.

"Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow." Isaiah 1:18

(photo by Maggie, of one of Steve's doves)

Seeing God in ...

Isn't that the key?
Isn't that the only way to find meaning in the madness?
Isn't it the sweetest way to smother the moments between waking and sleeping?
To "see God".

It's become a sort of dance for me. A waltz. My eyes and ears take in what is around them as my feet move and my heart "sees". I've come to realize that I'm a bit of an odd bird really. So much of what is happening in front of me --- I totally miss. Those who live with me know it to be true. They can be talking to me, and know that I am just not there for a few moments. Frustrating yes. To them and to me actually. It's something I consciously try and manage --- to stay focused on what is necessary but still not miss the treasure that is exposing itself in the quiet corners of life.

For quite some time I allowed the frustration to overwhelm me. I wanted to be "present" fully for the conversation. And I would become so upset with myself when I realized I had trailed off on this "waltz" with God. But over the past months, I've come to accept it as a way I am being grown and trained. To love deeply, care intensely, attend to the details that matter, but not get engrossed in the whirl of words. After all - it's most important that I have a space open on my card for the waltz God might invite me to join Him on.

Here's an example. When I'm walking in the woods, I see God and hear His lessons to me in the trees. Their shape, leaves, bark, roots, proportion to one another, proximity to each other, even in the placement of where they will spend their life. It may seem nonsensical but it truly is not. For in all the details of the wordless tree, I can see and understand so many truths from God.
There is a lovely book in my head ----- all about the trees ----- and what God whispers to us in their silence. I've learned so much from the trees; their whispers say the same things to me as God's Word does each morning.
like---
"Be still and know..." (a tree is a master at "being still" and when you look at it -- you know --- it knows something that can not be conveyed in words)
"I am the vine, my Father is the Gardener..."
"Love the Lord your God will all your heart, all your soul, all your strength..."
"God made the earth by His power; founded the world by His wisdom; stretched out the heavens by His understanding..."
"...they stayed continually at the temple, praising God..."

(ever noticed how trees perpetually "praise God" with their limbs always raised high reaching for the Heavens...) I can learn much from God's trees.

In the waltz, I realize, God's profound patience. He is the beautiful Teacher. He repeats Himself over and over to me, and to you. He will send us His truths in the Bible, He will send us the same truths in the world around us too. Yes, God can, speak HIS truths even in the midst of this fallen world we live in.

The child that smiles sweetly as they pass by us on the street, the bird that sings loudly from the high branch of the tree, the sun that rises without fail each day, the mystery of the beating heart and breathing lungs. The vastness of the ocean and its rhythmic tides. God is speaking.
God wants to be seen.
God is constantly inviting us to know Him.

We simply must separate ourselves from the maddening activity ----- and waltz -- with HIM.

This year, I plan to dance more ------ and talk less.
May my dance card --- and yours ---- have open spaces in it ---- everyday.
We might just get asked ---- to dance.

"The LORD looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." Psalm 14:2
 
"God looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God." Psalm 53:2

"Come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!" Psalm 66:5

(photo taken by Margaret Njoki, a precious child in Kenya as she walked with Steve - it's of a pathway between widows homes at the base of the Aberdare mountains) 


©2011 Donna Taylor/Reaching for the Robe

There's a Puzzle on my Kitchen Table...

Steve and I have been sitting at our kitchen table every evening for the past 11 days putting a puzzle together – at the request of our sweet Maggie.

I love puzzles, but rarely take the time to sit still long enough to focus and successfully place the pieces in their predestined spaces. However, this puzzle is special and so we persist.

Maggie has been gone these past 11 days, visiting a friend in California. She planned the trip months ago. She purchased her own tickets and eagerly anticipated the trip. But as the day drew nearer we all realized this would be a tough time to be apart. We relish the holiday season and enjoy the fireside, cookie baking, Christmas lights together. She will arrive home 36 hours before Christmas, and so the holidays have felt “different” with our Maggie away.

But she left a gift behind. Actually she left 13 gifts behind, one for each day she would be gone. Here were her instructions to us:

“Each day at 4:00PM when dad is home from work, go into my room, turn on my cd player, play Charlie Brown Christmas music, open my Mac and click on the prerecorded message to you for that day. Then follow the instructions of the message, and finally, call me on the phone.”

She had Christmas candy overflowing from silver servers she decorated her desk with – candy canes spilling out of the silver teapot. It was decorated elegantly with that perfect Maggie touch.

First, her video message would lovingly greet us and share something special she was thankful for in our home, our relationships, or our walk with God. Beautiful reminders from our daughter of what she has received in her heart as she has grown up in our home. Next, she would tell us which Christmas movie she wanted us to watch that evening (she had all the Christmas movies stacked neatly on a side table).  She would share a “Maggie Commentary” on each movie and then remind us to choose a box for the day (there were 13 boxes pyramid stacked on one side of the desk). We would choose a box, which held several puzzle pieces ---- and carefully carry them to our kitchen table to continue on the with the project of completing the beautiful Christmas puzzle. Several days into the routine, we realized the puzzle would reveal a photograph of Maggie and a message from her. A hidden message, one we would have to be patient and diligent to uncover.

So each day we have sat dutifully and attended to the puzzle pieces on our kitchen table, eager to complete the project and find the hidden message.

You may have already learned this lesson, or at least experienced it at some level. It was not a new concept to me, but it came packaged in a fresh new way that ministered to my wonderings of late.

A puzzle is much like our walk with God. With all its pieces and all the unknowns, there are still truths we can hold on to and these should never be ignored. (If ignored, life can become hopeless.)

With the puzzle --- we know there are many pieces, and it will take time to find the home of each uniquely designed part. With this puzzle, we have only been receiving a few pieces at a time. So patience was key. We knew eventually we would complete the puzzle and the fullness of the message would be clear. But we could do NOTHING about the mystery of the unknown pieces until they found their way to the table.

With life --- we know certain things about our life, but much of it is still a mystery. We know what color our eyes are and what our favorite food is, but we do not know what tomorrow, or next week, or next month will look like. We can have an idea, but we do not know for certain. It is a mystery. We do not have all the details we would need to even make an educated guess. We can not guess or presume to know, we do not have all the pieces.

With God ---- we can find a deep, abiding peace in knowing that He has all the pieces, He knows what the finished puzzle of life will look like. HE and only HE can make it a beautiful finished product.

No one – no one --- knows. No matter how successful, how wealthy, how healthy, or how happy they are --- no one knows what the finished puzzle of their life will look like.

God does.

And what’s more, He wants the outcome to be beautiful and worthwhile.

God was the designer of the puzzle called me. God designed the puzzle called you.

I’ve received just enough wisdom from God to know, that in my hands alone, my puzzle is in trouble. But when I remove my hands from trying to manipulate the pieces and when I rest my mind from trying to manage the results, when I wait for God to reveal the pieces and place them according to His good plans, life has hope and becomes exquisite. It becomes so --- because the Creator of the stars has His hands on the pieces and I get to simply enjoy the feeling of being “placed” by Him.

Our flesh wants to be in charge. But our soul knows we are unfit for the task. 

Our mind thinks it could maybe figure out where to place the pieces. But our soul knows our mind will never be able to accomplish in 3 lifetimes what God can accomplish in one.

I want the puzzle on my kitchen table to be complete. But it is not.

I want the puzzle of my life to reveal glimpses to me of what the outcome will look like. But it will not.

I want to place my puzzle in the hands of the One who can orchestrate the most with the pieces. And He will.

It’s a matter of patience, endurance, and surrender.

I wouldn’t want to see what would be pieced together if left in my human hands.

I look forward to seeing the finished product in His.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

(photo by Steve, of Maggie's puzzle to us)

Faith at 19,000 feet...

The gentle bumping and rocking of the small plane doesn’t give me concern. The fact that we’re rocking along to the noise of the sputtering plane engine at an altitude of about 19,000 feet in the air, with wind currents that seem to playfully toss the plane about in a sort of childhood type game doesn’t cause alarm. Instead I actually love the feeling of being jolted about a bit in the air, in a tiny plane, knowing we will either fly through safely or not --- and God is the One who decides; I’m comforted that there is nothing for me to do but to sit and trust. And I allow myself, at my inner core, to imagine I’m a child being rocked about in a cradle with a parent that is in control. It’s not something I convince myself of, it’s just the way I naturally respond to the turbulence felt in a small aircraft bouncing through the atmosphere.

Flying from Nairobi, Kenya north to Lodwar, we fly over a portion of the Great Rift Valley and watch in silent awe as the landscape below us transforms from what feels like one planet to another. We leave the lush, greenery of the Rift Valley and slowly relinquish the shades of green to tints of browns. The “life” seems to be drained out of the earth before our very eyes. Flying over the equator, we laughingly remark that there really is “no red line” defining that mystical line our minds have tattooed in red marking this outermost point circling our world.  The roads all merge into one road that travels a perilous path to northern Kenya. We opted to fly, because the drive can be much more dangerous and the journey of 18+ hours on land is efficiently covered in 3 hours in our 10 passenger prop.  The noise inside our silver capsule doesn’t allow for chit-chat among us, but instead noisily guides us to plug Ipods in, listening to music, and for me praising and praying. I love the moments, that can roll into hours for me – when I’m left alone to just talk with and listen to my Daddy God. And that was the agenda for the 3+ hours I flew over the earth He created through the sky He made.

The views were perfectly matched by the soundtrack of praise being played in my ears. It was a time of surreal positioning 19,000 feet above the norm of my gravity laden world; I embrace the opportunity to “hear” my Father’s voice.

Years before this, I had come to know the deep, unearthly goodness, the peace that surpasses what words can express, as I learned to pray intimately to my God for those around me, and in pursuit of the me He looks on --- not the me I live with, but the Donna He sees. And in those moments of being in His presence, my one complete addiction took hold --- nothing compares to holding onto His ankle (or laying my head on His toe), breathing the air that surrounds my Father as I feel the wisp of His robes swirling about me, and listening, just listening to the sounds that come from Him to me. But that’s for another posting…

So I relished the thoughts of my 3+hour flight with Him.

Just north of the equator, our prop plane flew into a bank of white clouds that allowed us continued glimpses of the earth below for a short time, but then seemed to encapsulate us in a God sized cotton ball. We rode silently through the blue skies with nothing but white softness below us, beside us, and above us. We could see the delicate shapes of the clouds and distinguish one cloud from another as they overlapped one another and completely surrounded us. The phenomenon was beautiful beyond description, we were wrapped in a world of white beauty. And that’s when my Father whispered to my heart.

“You can’t see the ground below you anymore, but you KNOW it is there. That, my dear daughter, is faith.”

When God through the Holy Spirit speaks so clearly to my heart and mind like this, I often times spin my head around just to see if perhaps someone else caught it too. It’s so CLEAR and real.

But no one else in my flying silver capsule seemed to notice and so I resumed my window view and began the daughter dialogue with my Daddy God.

I revisited the verse in Hebrews – about faith being sure of what you hope for and certain of what you can not see. And I listened.

You see, I was nervous about meeting these people we were flying to serve. In the remote areas where we would be going, they live exactly as their ancestors have lived for hundreds of years. They do not know my world and I knew I was not ready for theirs. And so this journey was a step, leap, well --- it was actually more like a hurl of faith. God wanted us to serve there, to go there, to see, and to be changed there in HIS hands. And so we were simply obeying.

But first, He, in His goodness, would teach me a sweet truth about faith at 19,000 ft. over the world.

I could not see the ground below us, it was, if relying on sight alone, it was gone. But my mind KNEW the ground was most certainly below us, as it had always been. I knew there were people, trees, animals, rivers, I knew there was life just beyond where my eyes were being allowed to visit. But none of it could be seen. I looked up to see the blue sky I knew would be above me, for it had always been there. For over 4 decades I had looked up and seen the sky over my head. But on that day, there was only white. I KNEW the sky was over head, it had always been there, it’s a core reality of life right --- the sky is overhead and the ground is underneath. But for miles and miles of bumpy reality ---- the sky and the ground were not in sight. If I relied on what I could see --- the earth and sky were gone. But if I inferred with what I knew and had experienced, if I tapped into what I had learned and been told by others, I could move forward with the complete assurance the earth and sky were unchanged and very much present, but simply out of my range of sight for a time.

That is faith.

To KNOW that what you can not see is there.

To KNOW because of what you have learned and experienced in the past, that just beyond what you can see --- is the reality of what is real ---- that is faith.

It’s a place of unearthly reality ---- that carries God’s smile and our quizzical wonderings.

God and I conversed for miles and miles about His lesson to me about faith. He shared with me that there would be more lessons of faith in my earthly existence. He clarified to me, it was vitally important to receive each lesson obediently and with a childlike surrender, so I could move to the next level and know more.

More about faith.

More about HIM.

More from Him.

Less of the confusion of this world.

Less of the dependence on what I can or can not see.

In the clouds over Kenya, faith came alive for me. I revisit those clouds often when the clouds of doubt and trouble surround me. I remember ---- and smile.

"Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see."
Hebrews 11:1

The King's most treasured possession...

(Written for and given to a beautiful young lady who loves her Heavenly Father, wants to live for Him, but is wounded and unappreciated by those around her in this world. I share it now with you --- in case you are or you know someone who is "the daughter of the King".)

There once was a King, a wise, honored, much loved King who ruled over many lands. He was handsome and brave and all who looked on him, both men and women, thought him to be the most remarkable of men who ever lived.

The King had a daughter who looked very much like her father: the King loved her with all his heart. While every day the King had many matters to attend to and many people asking him for help and guidance, always the King was most attentive to the world surrounding his daughter. For she was his treasure.

Those living in the kingdom were loved and cared for by the kind, wise king as well, but many of them cared more for their lands and their wealth than they cared about the King’s guidance and instructions towards them. For they had a secret hope that they too someday could become as successful and as wise as the King himself. So while they were thankful for the goodness of the King, deep inside they longed to have what he possessed.

His daughter, the treasure of his heart, cared only for the King himself. She did not let her eyes wander to the things that caught the attention of others, for her heart was fully devoted to her father, the King.

Because of this loving devotion, the treasured daughter grew more beautiful with each passing year. Soon, her beauty began to reflect the handsomeness of her father, and those in the kingdom took note of her transformation.

With the seed of greed growing in their own hearts, they longed to have what she undoubtedly possessed, and so they began to press her for her attentions and for her secret. They wanted to know her more, to share in her good fortune, so they could become acquainted with the secret of her glowing appearance. They wanted what she had - and if necessary, they would use her to try and get it.

But as the beautiful daughter had grown in her love for her father the King, and as her heart had become more and more like his, she had bloomed from the inside out with a beauty and wisdom that grows out of the soul. It can not be touched by the hands of greed or self ---- it can only be tended by the hands of a loving King. And this was the pearl that grew steadfastly inside the daughter of the King.

As she grew in beauty, wisdom rooted in her soul and glowed from her eyes. And with this wisdom she came to know she would only be safe in the hands of her father, the King. For many in the land wanted what she had, but would be careless with her.

In her wisdom, the daughter of the King sat quietly in his counsel and she listened intently to his words. Many around her clamored for other things, and at times their lives looked enticing and intriguing. But deep inside the daughter knew, her peace and good pleasure would come through the wisdom of the King. And so she held true.

She was loving and kind. She cared for those around her deeply and often offered her gentle hands of care and support to them. But she never gave herself over to their ways. She held fast to the guidance of her father, the King. And each night when she lay her head on her pillow, she kept her thoughts on the ways of the King and the peace of his words comforted her heart and mind.

Other fair ladies in the land were courted and wed, each with the hopes of becoming the wife to someone who would someday become as magnificent as the King. Young steeds in the land sought the attention of the King’s daughter and while she would enjoy conversation with them and encourage them in their quest of knight hood, she never veered far from keeping the focus on the ways of her father. She valued most --- the ways of the King.

As time passed, the daughter grew in beauty, --- deep, profound beauty --- until the King himself knew she had become the most enchanting in the land. She had grown in wisdom, had chosen his ways above all else, and had kept herself separate from her suitors who pursued more than just her heart. It was at that time, the King knew she was fully ready to receive the greatness of the gift he had been secretly preparing for her during all the years since the day of her birth.

There was a young knight, who had been born to a simple farmer,  the farmer was a man of depth and character. While it is true knights are usually born in homes of royalty, the king knew the boy to have the heart of a knight, and so from birth, the King saw the young boy for the knight he was destined to become.The farmer had raised the boy in the same wisdom that flowed threw the heart of the King, and the boy had grown into a man of character and purity. The young man desired what was right and true, honorable and good. The young man had a heart that paralleled that of the King when he had been of that same age. No one in the land had taken note of the young boy, no one except his father the farmer, and the King. For the boy did nothing to draw attention to himself, he was simply focused on growing with depth of soul and character of heart.

When the time came, the King knew the boy would become the man he would share his most treasured possession with. For she had grown from the seed of his soul and the boy had grown with the ability to adore what was to be treasured most.

In the commotion and busy rush of the kingdom, few were wise enough to pause and see the beauty that resided among them. To many were focused on how they could have what the King had ----- to few were focused on how they could become like the King. And so most missed the beautiful union of the King’s most treasured possession to the quiet farm boy whose soul was a perfect fit. But the joy of the two--- the Kings daughter, and the Kings chosen one for her ---- was so true and deep, the King took good pleasure in knowing they too would raise little ones who would grow in wisdom and truth. They would continue to plant seeds in the souls of his grandchildren that would enable their eyes to want what the King could grow in their hearts.

And the King was very pleased with his most treasured possessions -- for they were a reflection of Him.

For God is the King of all the earth;
   sing to him a psalm of praise.  Psalm 47:7