Beauty In The Offering

Early this morning as I was on my way to the Hospice House under the blue/gray sky, I was reflecting over the past year since my father-in-law came to live with me and Bruce. Most of what came to mind were my ‘unlovelies’ that I constantly had to fight such as impatience, exhaustion, frustration and sometimes resentment. I had hoped that I had cared for Bud as an offering to God for His glory to be shown, but was beginning to doubt that as my thoughts reeled. With an increasingly heavy heart, I heard myself ask God ‘Was there ANY beauty in the offering?’

As I rounded the corner a portion of the sky exploded with pinks, oranges and reds displaying one of the most remarkable sunrises I have ever seen. The peculiar part of this sunrise was that the majority of the sky was still blue/gray with only a portion that appeared on fire. The beauty simply took my breath away and I knew immediately God’s answer was in the sunrise.

My offering of caring for Bud over the past year has been marked with the day to day journey producing many attitudes, some of the flesh and some of the Spirit. God will use those attitudes of the Spirit to further His kingdom, and thankfully it will be those Spirit moments that will catch the focus of others. Our Creator will make sure that the work of our hands for Him will display a splendor of His beauty just like the sunrise.

Our daily lives may be a dull bluish gray horizon but the beauty of our offerings will be that part of our lives that explode with His beauty. In the words of Matt Redman, Blessed Be Your Name.

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name