Learning to Breathe

Today I jogged. I hate jogging. Hate it, hate it, hate it. That panicked suffocating feeling. That gasping for air. The certainty that if you don't get oxygen soon, you are actually going to die. And to make matters worse, I am currently 9,000 feet above sea level, so the air is oxygen-starved.

In three weeks I go back to the developing country in which I work. I have never tried jogging there, but I have felt the same suffocating panic. The same gasping for breath. Not for lack of oxygen, but for lack of beauty. The darkness presses down. The human despair takes the breath away. I have felt the life slowly ebbing out of my soul.

That's why I have to succeed with this experiment. I have to learn to find beauty when beauty is in short supply. I have to learn how to breathe when the atmosphere is God-starved.

With Eyes to See

I have just finished reading Ann Voskamp's "One Thousand Gifts" and am embarking on a challenge of my own. For the next 1000 days I have determined to capture one bit of beauty; one photo every day. It is so easy to become overwhelmed with the darkness in this world, to focus on the broken and sad. But beauty is with us all the time. I know this because God is with us all the time, and God is the originator of beauty. All beauty is a faint reflection of Him. Beauty breathes life into my soul. I just have to have the eyes to see. And so I am going to purposefully, persistently look for Him—for beauty—every day for the next 3 years.

This blog is my testimony that…
…today I have seen beauty.

…today I have see God.

…today I have lived.