the gift of a snow day.

There was this day in January.  A day where a phone call came early and school was cancelled.  A day to be at home. {insert loud, echoing cheer}

A day when a skiff of snow and a layer of ice greeted us with the sun.  Just enough to make the hard ground shimmer in the morning light ... bouncing bits of glitter throughout the cold air.

A day where mamas waited and watched ... and waited some more.  Was today going to be their day?

A day when babies were born and bottles were made.

A day where eyelashes seemed longer than usual, and wet noses gleamed with a weird kind of beauty.

A day where new life was witnessed and captured.

It was a day I would have normally been in a classroom with only one window, and 23 desks ... but instead I was surrounded with blue sky, cattle, and the view I call home.

It was a day of feeding, and helping, and just being home.  Home ... where my heart is, where I want to be, and where I don't get to be on very many weekdays 9 months of the year.

It was a beautiful, breathtaking, gift from God kind of day.

And thankfully, I was right where I wanted to be, with the people I love the most, doing what I love to do with my camera around my neck.

Living a life that isn't easy, but one that is worth every bit of the {hard} it oozes.

every. single. bit.  {and then some}

when you can't see the sun.

This is Annie.  Annie and I live similar lives, and share a love for some of the same things in life.

Sunshine is very close to the top of both of our lists.

And so when sunshine is at the top of your list and you can't seem to find it no matter how hard you look, there is only one option.

You go find it.

Sunshine found.  

Mark made.  

2 hours well spent basking in the sun that we knew was there all along.

............................

And then, we went back to this:

note to self:  the sun is there - even when it can't be found ...and sometimes, in just the right light, at just the right time, it's a reflection seen in you.  

illusions.

I got out of the feed truck just long enough to take a couple of pictures.  Just long enough to capture the magic of freezing fog and the illusion it plays on the eye.

There are a few things in life I really don't like, and being cold is one of them.

The tip of my nose starts to feel like an icicle, and my hands & feet turn to a temperatures that could possibly hold enough power to turn something to ice if they were to touch it.

No matter how much I layer, or how many scarves I wrap around my neck, as soon as my face touches that crisp, biting air, my whole body shivers.  It knows what's coming. A kind of {cold} that lingers and takes everything warm you were holding onto away.  The kind of cold that looks beautiful on the outside, but often seems to reveal only bits of ugliness on the inside.

Maybe that's why I didn't want to get out of the truck.  I wanted to keep that warm, I'm doing fine, everything looks the way it should, no ugliness here kind of feeling close to the surface.

I wanted everything to be something it wasn't.  Something it isn't.  Something you think exists, but truly doesn't. Honestly, I liked the illusion.

The illusion of something being what it's not.

It was as if God was telling me, shouting at me, and whispering all at the same time.

I could hear His voice through each click of shutter.

Don't be fooled by appearance.

Don't be fooled by the latest and greatest trend.

Don't be fooled by that stuff you think you have to have.  It's just stuff.

It's foolish.

It's the book of Genesis, and the story of Adam & Eve alive in your little corner of Eastern Oregon.

It's an illusion.

I watched our dog sit and stare at me.

His face looking back at me - the black & the white visually feeding my thoughts.

Thoughts that I need to remember to refer back to.

Thoughts that brought a picture of who Jesus wants me to be to my mind.

Quit trying to fit in.  Quit trying to blend into the crowd.  Quit worrying.  Quit expecting perfection just because you have high expectations.  Quit comparing.  Quit lying.  Quit trying to be something you're absolutely not.  Quit judging.  Quit crying.

Quit it - whatever your it might be.  Because that {it} is keeping you from being like Jesus. 

It's keeping you from being warm on the inside and the outside.  It's keeping you from being moldable, pliable, bendable, breakable, approachable, and every other kind of {able}. 

You're not meant to be hard, you're meant to be broken. You're not meant to look perfect, you're meant to be cracked. 

Broken and cracked, oozing Jesus through every ounce of you. Nothing can ooze if your'e not cracked.

You need to be who you say you are.

You need to be who people see you being.

You need to be a little black, a little white, and a whole lot of gray.  You need to be like Jesus.

Flawless doesn't show anyone anything.

I rolled down the window just enough to see him clearly.  If you look closely you can see the faded line of the window right at his waist.  The heat was hitting my hands & face as I pushed the focus button one last time.  I was warm, and he wasn't.  I was done with my part of the chores, and he wasn't.

............................

This is our life.

What you see is what you get.

There's no illusion.

There's no filter.

There's no editing.

There's just us ... and hopefully a whole lot of Jesus oozing out of the cracks.

out of the fog & into the light.

There was this week in January where it was nothing but fog.  And I mean nothing.  The air was heavy, the train sounded like it was going to come right through our house several times a day, and it was just flat dull and gray no matter which way you looked.

The first few days weren't bad.  And then the reality of the stagnant air hit & it hovered over our world like a dark, ugly cloud day, after day, after day.

One thing I need to have in huge, bold words on a sign I can roll out when the fog rolls in each winter is this:   {fog doesn't last forever}!!  And even when it feels like it's going to hold on for the rest of your life, it doesn't.

Because up above the fog there is this place where the sun shines & you can almost feel God whispering happiness straight into your soul.

It's a place where smiles are contagious.

And relationships are strengthened.

Where squeals of delight can be heard echoing.

And friends pull you up from the deepest of pits you find yourself in.

There are places just like this where sunlight bounces off eyelashes & gives another freckle.

Where friends get to laugh.  A lot.

And middle-school drama gets left behind.

Where sun-flare is caught & captured.

And you remember that dancing isn't always done on your feet.

Where warmth is found in the comfort of legs wrapped around you and gloved hands holding you tight.

It's a place where you don't have to see to believe.  You just trust.

And a place where just {be}ing is the only option.

It's a place where you remember how to laugh, how to yell, and how to hold on tight to that which could disappear in seconds.

A place where you put one foot in front of the other and just carry on.

We found a place just out of the fog.

A place where it wasn't about gloom or gray.

A place where the thought of bottling up the sunshine was practical.

And shadows & slippery sleds simply meant {love}.

There was this place not far from home that we're still dreaming of returning to ... with a fondness of a day that will be etched in our minds forever.

A place just above the clouds where God whispered {I'm here} and {you're here} ... and together, we're a glimpse of what heaven really is.

Joy - in every single kind of way.