Week 3.28: Roads

Week 3.28: Roads

I must first start out with a somewhat embarrassing albeit not-too-surprising secret confession:  I was soo excited to be behind this vehicle that my hands shook as I rummaged one-handed through my purse to find my camera whilst rolling down my car window at the same time in order to get this shot. My heart pounded deafeningly in my ears. I couldn't believe I had managed to end up at a red light (which, in my small town are very, very short). When I played my images back (after the light turned green and all other opportunities were lost, of course), I could barely believe my eyes. Not just one image. Two.

That evening I plugged my images into my zippy new software that, admittedly is still pretty intimidating, and I fooled with basic settings and crops till I got the sweet beauty you see above. I don't know what I love most about this image...The classic vehicle? Maybe. The comfy couple in the cab? Maybe. The gorgeous summer trees? Maybe. The historical home just off to the right of this shot? Maybe.

What I think I like most is the intangible. The warmth of summer radiating down on me. The love between the twosome. The quirky personality I know that man has...he had a custom made bumper with etched letters on it, for crying out loud! The tumbled laughter in the fountain at the house on the corner. And the fact that God let me be right there in that moment for no other reason than the sheer joy He knew it would cause my heart. He knew my heart would sing in reaction to that thirty second span of my life.

I know a few of you might laugh and think to yourselves, "She really is theatrical, isn't she?" Well, maybe I am. But I don't know another way to live. And, more importantly, I don't want to. I don't want to have an underwhelmed attitude about my life. I want to be brimming with confident joy in who God created me to be and how He calls me to life in even the minutia of a red light.

I want to be like my father, who, no matter where I took him while he was visiting me at my tropical home, declared that every event and destination I took him to was his favorite. I want to be like my stepson, who, on spying out bighorn rams alongside the road we drove, clapped his hands together and turned his eyes toward heaven exclaiming, "Oh, thank you, God!"

I felt electricity and "Oh, thank you, God!" when I shot Roads. And I've been thinking about that attitude toward life a lot lately. I just finished reading a poetic book that speaks to this very issue called 1,000 Gifts. I recommend it. And I thank my friend who gave it to me and honored me by naming me as one of her 1,000 Gifts. Right now the thing that strikes me most is the joy that cannot be squelched...the heart song that cannot be silenced.

I think of Dietrich Bonhoeffer who wrote: "Gratitude changes the pangs of memory into a tranquil joy." I know my life doesn't begin to approach that of Bonhoeffer's. Still, I have pangs of memory. There are scars. Things that cannot be undone. But underneath all of the junk from this world is that tranquil joy. I have never been physically imprisoned as Bonhoeffer was. But we all live as prisoners in this weary world...unless. Unless we let the song of tranquil joy resonate into the depths of our hearts.

That. That is what I want. What I long for. No matter where I am in my life. No matter what is no more. No matter what never was. No matter what Roads I've bumped along or am bumping along or will bump along. I am free.

I'm reminded of one of my favorite movies and scenes of all times: Shawshank Redemption and Andy's stunt that got him two weeks in the hole...and one of my favorite songs at the moment...Sparrow by Audrey Assad.

Joy is something that cannot be stolen. Ever. We can kill it. But it cannot be stolen. Hooray!