Quote of the Day: The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers, and cities; but to know someone here and there who thinks and feels with us, and though distant, is close to us in spirit – this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden. – Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
– We’re like a molecule of water, ever moving in the cycle of life –

As a need for a starting point, let’s say you are dropping from the sky in the form of a snowflake. You land on a frozen field in Minnesota. There you sit, in your frozen state, waiting for something to happen so that you can move on. In this case, the spring thaw. With the warm air and sunshine, you melt and flow together with all the other melted molecules of snow, now water, and become run-off into the big ditch. You’re pulled by the slope of the earth into the Red River of the North, which runs the unique course of flowing north. If you think about maps and how North is at the top, it seems like this river defies gravity and flows up, not down. But, North it does indeed flow, into Canada, where it can get stuck for a while again, because it’s colder the further north you go. The river feeds into Lake Winnipeg which is part of the Hudson Bay watershed. The Hudson Bay covers most of Northern Canada and meshes with the Arctic Ocean. Your destiny as this particular molecule seems to be cold. However, you could potentially become attached to a ship and sail with it to the Atlantic Ocean, work your way down the coast and settle somewhere off the Florida Keys. One can always remain hopeful. Still, you could get stuck again in an iceberg. You could spend years and years freezing and melting. You could evaporate and become cloud, blow with the wind and end up in some far-off country where you have to learn all over the shape of the land. And, find, that in the end, it was you, a single droplet of water, that gave life to an exotic flower that brightened a dark day for a girl with a heavy heart.

Did you know that no matter where the stream pulls you, no matter which direction the wind blows, no matter how many times you are frozen, you will thaw, you live on, and YOU create beauty in a world filled with darkness.

I often think of this hymn, My life flows on in endless song; above earth’s lamentations, I catch the sweet, though far-off hymn that hails a new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that Rock I’m clinging. Since Christ is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?

May the waters of life flow in and through you, filling you up to overflowing so that when you’re needed most, you will provide the nourishment to bring out the beauty in others.

Amen.

Journaling Prompt: Describe a time that you brought out the beauty and talents in another person and watched him or her shine.