To View Grace

This window is my saving grace.

I know it doesn't look like much, smudged dirty and reflecting back my battle scarred kitchen sink as it looks out onto three dead trees and the Oklahoma blankness, but you just don't know how many times it has been my sanity.

For me, that window is sunrise and sunset. It's the one impossibly sun-green spot in my day as I look out over winter farmland. It's a "mountain" interrupting the unbroken horizon. It's the nightly appearing of the lights of the town just twenty minutes north.

That window is gratitude when bed time for the boys can't come soon enough. It's a deep breath when all around me is chaos crazy, laundry piles, and unmopped floors. It's a reminder to slow and be purposeful, a reminder that all is grace.

I don't know how to explain this to you without telling you that, to my tropical eyes, most of this area is barren, brown, brittle, and broken. And while my view may not look like much to you with your big trees and your ocean and your snow capped mountains, it stands in sharp contrast to my daily reality. And I rejoice.

It reminds me of the iridescent blue kingfisher who used to join me at my high school track at dawn, whispering "God loves you" over and over again.

Sometimes I hand wash my dishes just to stay at that window a little bit longer.