Beautiful One.

With reference to being busy and not taking a moment to just stop and look. Down time is needed by everyone… and God can promote the ultimate rest.

~~

It’s good that I came. There was some debate and a little regret coming out: I had so much to do and to spend the better part of a full day away from my grindstone and work was nerve-wracking. All through the drive, all through getting ready for dinner and the shower afterwards, I was still unsure if being here was the right thing to do.

Until the next morning. I picked up my bible after getting ready for the day, bunched up onto the window-seat, drew the satiny, transparent curtains closed and looked out. I have a secret harbouring love for window-seats: they are so secluded and allow a body to be totally immersed in their thoughts and, almost literally, cut off from the outside world. Ultimately, a reader/writer’s paradise. As I sat on the cushion, bunched my shoulder into the corner, I was met with a sense that I was not expecting in the slightest.

the beauty of Your majesty awakes my soul to sing,

Sight.

I look out a the entrance to the chateau, 13 colourful flags line the lintel 20 feet above the door… our nation’s provinces all displayed in an orderly line, blowing in the chilly morning air. The sun is glinting off the dusty yellow of the building, but it is not the beauty of man’s works that catch my eye.

No, it’s the flawless periwinkle blue sky with no trace of cloud. It’s the mirror-like frozen expanse of the lake that stretches so far that the people walking around it become invisible. It’s the sheltered cove formed by the mountains that looks so safe that one would feel no fear from invaders. These things are incomprehensibly made — and tribute is never, cannot ever be, to us.

But oh those mountains: the carefully crafted evergreen trees only reach up so high and then the rock begins. Powerful, solid; testimony to the glory of the Creator. Old as time, and still standing the test of it. The snow crowns the summits: that seamless expanse of white, dazzling and shimmering in the sun that just kisses the frozen peaks.

The light off of the snow is blinding and makes one squint, but as the eyes adjust, nary a more perfect picture has been painted. All of the different facets are fantastically crafted in their own way, but when one adds all of these elements together, it forms something beyond recognition.

Growing up in Southern Alberta, one would think that the mountains would get old (well they are old age-wise), that one would get used to them and not really realize their sheer magnitude and phenomenal power on a regular basis.

But they never cease to send my heart racing. This is a flat out display of the highest quality of love.

They bring the heart out of the chest like when someone is kissing you softly. They send a wave of shivers down the back like when someone strokes your face with a cold hand. They make one breathe a sigh of utter awe like when you nestle down into a warm and comfortable window-seat, wrapped in comfort and beauty to gaze out to a sight such as this.

’cause nothing on earth is as beautiful as You.