Samantha Bird's Blog
i asked for wonder. / 02.03.10, 06:12 PM
I apologize to those of you who care about reading my blogs and have not had new news to read of for a long time. Man I suck!
“Dear Lord,
grant me the grace of wonder. Surprise me, amaze me, awe me in every crevice of Your universe. Delight me to see how Your Christ plays in ten thousand places, lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His, to the Father through the features of men’s faces. Each day enrapture me with Your marvelous things without number. I do not ask to see the reason for it all; I ask only to share the wonder of it all.”
That is just a prayer from a book I’m reading called The Ragamuffin Gospel.
So lately I have been feeling real dreamy, like life is just this foggy unreal existence, I’m sure you are familiar with the feeling. I used to find little things really beautiful and exciting, and looking back at myself I think I used to be more joyful. I’m not sure what my problem is. I keep allowing myself to forget things about God. This book I’m reading for mission year curriculum came at a very fortunate time. I feel like the way brennan manning presents God’s grace is just refreshing my soul. I mean its nothing new, but he presents it so simply, and for some reason God’s love is just seeming NEW to me. I can’t really explain why its new to me NOW when I’ve known it all my life. But I’m having a hard time believing it. Seriously doesn’t Grace seem too good to be true. But anyways back to this dream. This prayer is something that really stuck out to me because of the dreamy way Ive been feeling, and the realization that Ive lost the Wonder of life. So Ive been praying this prayer. And guess what, the past few weeks earth has really been showing off. And life has been more colorful. And Ive been more brave.
Well here is an example: Charlotte decided to be summery and sunny and warm! And i felt like i was in California. Then it decided to get super rainy again. and i hated that. But then last Sunday, this rain was wonderful. after a long day of entertaining wild children, and feelin sick to my stomach from the pound of calorie pound cake that i made and then ate with them, we began to clean our house as is our Sunday night custom, when i looked outside I saw that the rain was coming down harder than id ever seen before in my life. And it was not even slightly cold outside. That night turned into barefoot freedom, it was beautiful, and felt soooo good. We swang in the pouring rain, sang in the pouring rain, danced in the pouring rain, i jumped in all the puddles i could find. Then the wind started to change the direction of the rain, and it was just crazy gusty watery freedom. and it was Wonderful.
And now Charlotte has given us snow. SNOW. I had never been in actual snow fall in all my life. It was such a magical moment. We were at this place called Urban Ministries helping some artists spray paint a mural on these lockers, and it started to snow. I danced around and couldn’t stop smiling. I was really jealous when i watched the movie Avatar because Pandora was the most beautiful place, but our earth is similar, and its REAL. Anyways our planet is full of WONDER, just watch planet earth or the snow falling, or the sun making snow look like sparkles.
Made a snow man with a friend named Damien today, it ended up being a man named Amy, don’t really know how that ended up. And then it ended up becoming a statuesque sculpture of a person on one knee. I realized that i LOVE sculpting, i was getting way too into it, and it got destroyed. how sad. Snow ball fights are also fun, and pretending to be ice skaters with becky, and her falling many times hah:) know what though, snow makes adults in Charlotte grouchy. Some lady blamed Becky and I on making the road more slippery. As if that is in our hands.
Ive started to having morning cooking class with my neighbor Mr. Bobbie, he is this old man who is a professional horse guy. He seriously has probably hundreds of ribbons and trophies from all these national horse competitions. Anyways he used to be a cook, and so far all I’ve made with him is peach cobbler, but i plan on more of this. it was really fun, and he has the cutest dog named junior.
I WILL be working at urban ministries SOON. It WILL happen. i keep telling myself that, i love it there.
Stephina one of my neighbors is becoming like my mom here, and she makes me laugh my head off. She is awesome and understands me when i just don’t understand life. Her and her husband William have showed me such great friendship. She just got home from spending a few weeks at the hospital, she got an infection from a back surgery she had. So if you like to pray for people, pray for them. They are wearing heavy boots these days as they both are unemployed and have health problems.
I just got home from spending time with my friend on her porch cause her family locked her out. Sometimes all you can say to someone is “i don’t understand why life has to be so tough” and then cry with them. I think this was one of the most real and depressing moments Ive had with someone here in Charlotte. No 12 year old deserves to be locked out of their home at 11 at night, and nobody deserves to feel unloved the way she does. This girl just holds such a huge place in my soul, i could cry over her life but that doesn’t really help does it. What do i do with this? I guess just pass it on and hope that your prayers help her. I’m glad to have found though that she believes that God does things for a reason, but that doesn’t really ease the pain too much. She does not seem like a twelve year old.
well life is just a mixture of joyful, depressing, hilarious, boring, wonderful moments isn’t it. sometimes i just don’t know how to be: sad, happy, bla? i mean i don’t want to end this on a sad note, but I’m sad and so many people have such unfortunate lives. Ill end it with something to do with Wonder since that was the title.
I really feel that God is starting to bring back that wonder in my life. Its great.
“God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us.”
Go play in the rain, or build a snow statue, or if there is no snow just lay in the grass and take a nap, or talk to that person over there about their life!
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Oh sam! I just love you and am so blessed to have you on my team!
By becky / Feb 4, 12:58 PM / #