.Whose not what.

We went for a walk. It started as just me, but then He came.

*******

While it was still just me: as I headed out, tension flowed out of me and gratitude flowed in. As I took in the pine-scented air, the huge sky, the massive moving clouds, the beautiful trees pointing up.

I breathed in relief at the perfection, the real-ness, of this moment. This evening under the deepening sky, this walk through my town. Down familiar streets, next to familiar woods. I relaxed into my body's movement; I gave thanks for beauty.

*******

There's a list on my wall I made a couple weeks ago. I've been adding to it. "Take Joy", it says in colorful, sweeping script. On it I've written those things I find "life-giving". Choices to remind myself to make, in hopes that they will add up to the life I want: a life of space and depth and prayer, of connection and meaning and play. To be the person I want to be: both a pursuer and a product of... space and depth and prayer, connection and meaning and play.

*******

He said, it's good that you chose to go for a walk.

It's good that you're moving. It's good that you love looking at this scenery, this sky, these trees.

It's good that you love where you live and your roots are growing into a place.

But remember, that is not what's most important.

You are mine.

Separate from those things.

*******

We kept walking, and I looked over the week in thankfulness: the events, the connections, the joy, the laughter.

It's good that you are trying to create magic in your daily life, for yourself and for others.

It's good that you love noticing and making beautiful spaces.

But remember, that is not what's most important.

You are mine.

Separate from those things.

*******

That is how I want to live and I am not about to stop. These gifts and these choices, I think, provide the structure to help me see Him, and to help me love them.

But they are not what give me life.

If I were not in Newberg. If I were not studying psychology. If I were not in this church, in this community, in this town.

If I were not under this sky, if I were not looking at these trees, if I were not breathing in this pine-scented air over these vineyards.

If I were not appreciative and in awe, of these things.

If I didn't make my cohort laugh, if I didn't read to kids and hold babies, if I wasn't on the Sunday school schedule. If I never know how to speak to her heart, if they never smile when I walk in.

...I would have life.

And I would still be His.

*******
And His voice is tender in its comfort, as He reminds and reassures.

Because this life and this girl, what they are, will change.

But Whose they are will not.

*******

...That's what He said.

And all my learning heart can think, in gratitude:

He is so gracious to speak to me.

*******

"This is what makes us content-

the contented, deep joy is always in the touching of Christ-

in whatever skin He comes to us in."

-Ann Voskamp