Together on the Journey:
A Weekly Blog 

This week has been unexpectedly busy, and many things seem to be pulling at my attention. So when I sat down on Wednesday to reflect on what I was going to talk about at Church by Candlelight that evening, I felt myself feeling hurried and distracted.

And then I felt something else, a little nudge telling me to ‘go outside’.

Now I don’t know if you remember Wednesday afternoon, but it was downpouring, and I had absolutely no desire to go outside. But I’ve learned to trust these little Holy Spirit nudges, so I grabbed my umbrella and went outside.

And as I walked about the church, I began to notice tiny beautiful things. Red berries on a bush that had somehow made it through the winter. Tulip buds by the church door. Rocks the KCS kids had painted and put in their pollinator garden. These things were not enormous, but they were there. Reminding me that beauty is always present, even when the world feels heavy.

Because right now the world does feel heavy, and sometimes it feels like if we acknowledge the beautiful things then we are not taking the heavy things seriously enough. But you know what, I think the opposite is true. Being grateful for beauty is not ignoring the world, but somehow acknowledging how the world is in that moment. The doom will always be there, but so will the beautiful things, and this just seems like the year to not ignore the beautiful things.

And so, today, I am grateful for the Holy Spirit nudge that took me outside to notice beauty in a world that can often feel so consumed by doom.

I want to leave you with a quote from Richard Wagamese from this amazing book Embers. I invite you to reflect on it in the coming week, and to think about what gratitude means to you:

“It has been proven in my life that when your prayers are about gratitude for what is already here, Creator and the universe always send more. Always. When you pray for what you want, Creator and the universe only hear the wanting, and that’s what you create – more wanting. Be thankful, offer prayers of gratitude for the blessings already in your life, whether health, prosperity or productivity, and more blessings will come.”

– Jess