Ten Minutes to Seven

At ten minutes to seven I walked into the kitchen early this morning just as the sun was coming up. It was those few moments between night and morning – dawn is what we call clumsily call it and I was looking for coffee. My kitchen window looks out across my neighbor’s massive back yard and as I opened  the kitchen curtains over the sink, I gasped. There was a brilliant shaft of light filtering through the tall crepe myrtle trees that have now gone scarlet and it flooded my neighbor’s garden.  It was indescribably beautiful and I was compelled to just stand there, in the presence that beauty, to look on a moment, a point and place in time that would never ever happen again. I was holding my breath, afraid to blink or it would be lost. God made this one perfect moment for me alone. No one else would see it just like I was seeing it, no one else would experience it like I was experiencing, no one else would marvel at the depth and richness of those colors. It only last a moment but it felt like an eternity and I can still feel the warmth of it. I can close my eyes and see it. I wish I could describe it, but I don’t have the words. All I can say is in that unsuspecting moment, I was touched by God and I have to give witness to it.

Honestly, I had planned something else for this first post of December but that will be posted another day. You cannot be touched in a moment like that and not do something to recognize it, to commemorate it.  One of the places I visit online encourages giving voice to, giving witness to the gifts that God has given us on a daily basis. It’s called One Thousand Gifts.

I hadn’t planned to take up the One Thousand Gifts  devotional practice of writing down and numbering my blessings.  But this morning standing at my kitchen sink, in that one unexpected moment of pure beauty, grace and joy I knew it was something I needed to take up as I looked forward to the coming New Year as a devotional discipline for myself. Taking up this as a spiritual discipline is my commemoration of that one unexpected indescribable moment. To thank God for the gift he gave me at ten minutes to seven this morning.

You can find out more about One Thousand Gifts and Ann Voskamp  by clicking on the A Holy Experience button on my sidebar. You'll be richer for it.