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I am facing a great and glorious task. It spreads out before me like the Oklahoma skies this morning, deep blue peaking through endless, churning clouds of gray. Most of the time I live in the gray, churning my own mind, tirelessly searching for the blue, for the spaces of clarity. Those “ah-ha” moments call me ever on.

This morning is no exception. The world around me is waking up and I with it. It’s approaching dawn, the trees are but dark giants, silhouetted against this canvas of stormy blues and grays, and I think about the sort of disruptive painting God has brushed out today. The wind whips the edge of my paper as I write. This is a day that spurs one forward. This is a day of rumbles and unsettling. This is a day of big movement. I will not stay who I am. My yesterday has already gone.

I imagine He has a rope and it is attached somewhere, just out of my eyesight, to the gray curtain of clouds. And He pulls on the rope, ever shifting my grays, exposing more blue. At the same time He is waking up the sun, telling her to rise up and take her place in this new day. She is needed. He reminds me I am needed too.

There is one bird singing louder than the rest. He makes a sound in his throat, a settling awe-filled sort of sound and it is followed closely by five notes. I put words to his notes. “Here I am, know Me.” And I am sure he sings it out for God. He sings it straight to my heart. My heart of shifting grays, my heart of dawning light, my heart that realizes more than anything it just wants to fall all the more in love with the Artist who presently woos me.

This is no mistake. This morning, this very day, this table and chairs, this back patio, this Oklahoma storm threatening to brew as dawn rolls in. It is my story.

Chaos and flurry, whispered angry hateful words that only I can hear, selfish thought upon selfish thought. These are the storms I live in. These are the clouds that mask the joy ever available to me and yet seemingly, maddeningly always out of my reach. Today, He pulls on the rope and the gray curtain shifts and I see glorious blue. I see Him. I see Him being enough for me. I see Him being my focus. Him being my sun. My face has not been warm in the shadow of my own making. Clarity has been fleeting. Joy escapes me. Giant, dark silhouetted trees make me feel small, unimportant, alone. Who will save me from the twirling storm that is coming? I fence myself in. I guard. I am on-edge, looking out for my protection. I trust no one. I see the leaves blowing backwards in the wind, their veins exposed, but I feel the leaves inside my own chest, my veins exposed. I am vulnerable in these elements. I am flying dangerously. I am the bird that is so obsessed with my feathers and my soaring that I fail to see the glass window before me. I crash with a dull thump and am stunned. Where did my beauty go? What happened to my graceful, fluid movement?

We are all lost to look at ourselves. The more we peer in the further in we fall. We are turned inside out, exposed, volatile. Is it any wonder how much pain we feel? Is it any wonder how cold we’ve become? There is me and I can’t see past me. I must be about the business of protecting myself. It’s a joyless fight, but I keep thinking tomorrow I’ll emerge victorious. Tomorrow never comes.

I’m looking to the sky and I can’t distinguish now between gray and blue. Where do clouds end and sky begin? It is all hazy now. The light is confusing me. His presence is awkward. I don’t know what to do with the Creator when I’ve been so busy creating my own reality. I’m not sure we can co-exist. Why does He keep blowing on the pages of my notebook, whipping them down over my pen? Can’t He see I’m trying to write? Or maybe, maybe He is just saying hello.

I am cold now. Hot chocolate races down the inside of my throat, but my shivers and goosebumps ensue. I refuse to go in just yet. He is speaking to me. “Here I am, know Me,” sings my little bird. He has become “my” little bird. I can’t imagine anyone else is currently out on their back patio listening to his song. So I am claiming him. He is mine, a gift from the Artist. The one who shifts my grays. The one who rattles my paper to say “hello.” My perspective changes the longer I am with Him. I become distracted from myself and notice the wind has died down. Only for a moment, but I notice the moment. I am changed by the moment. I consider what it would be like to notice Him in more moments. I wonder if I am capable of this.

Whip. Snap. My paper hits my pen and I am awake again to His presence, ever with me.

My eyes pan my surroundings as my pen takes pause. I notice a robin on a distant roof top. He is staring at me. That is, until I lock eyes with him and then he turns his head and hops away, down the slanted roof side and out of my sight. Eyes pan more. I notice a small garden shovel, balanced on the top edge of a utility box that is affixed to the side of our brick home. “That shovel has been lost for months,” I think to myself and then I repeat it out loud. “That shovel has been lost for months,” declaring my amazement to a bird that swoops above my head. Something lost has been found. The wind stops again to take notice.

There is more to notice. There is always more to notice. Most of us don’t have the time or the focus. I don’t. I haven’t. Perhaps I am changed now though. I see plant hangers on either side of my back door. They invite me to create beauty. I am drawn in, thankful for the opportunity. I would like to believe I am changed.

My wind storm has subsided. The trees are still and green now in the light. I can see the dark gray clouds again distinctly, though the sky peaking through from behind them isn’t blue now, but more silver. I feel a raindrop on my arm, but only one. Far off I hear the chimes of a clock I have never heard before, and I flashback to my hometown and the big, cold concrete court house steps. This is all so familiar to me, and I realize how omnipresent the Creator actually is. He is in my past and in my today. He is ever with me. He is on this paper and He is in the details of my home that will soon be waking up, coming to life inside. I too am coming to life inside.

How could I have missed Him? Nervously, preening my own feathers in the wake of a storm, I smash straight into His full-bodied chest. He lets out a rumbling chuckle. Or was that thunder? His laughter brings me joy. He calms my storm. With the pull of a rope He shifts my gray. In a moment I am changed.