Through The Eyes of Love

One of the wonderful benefits of doing dialysis for my Dad has been having the time to sit and listen. I don't think that we realize how much our lifestyles rob us of just having time. If it were not for the dialysis sessions I would never have the ability on my own to stop my life long enough to just listen to him.

I have learned many wonderful things about his life that I would have never otherwise known. So many stories I now have stored up, like little treasures. And at lunch today I was able to share one in particular with my daughter as we stopped long enough to just talk.

My father was the oldest of 4 children. He was also the biggest. (My brother is also very tall which is why I always thought that was part of being the oldest when I was young) He came from a family of relatively small men who never realized they were small men. I don't know that anyone who ever had the misfortune of coming up against one of them thought of them as small in stature either, but that's another story.

My Grandma had one eye that was crossed. She had surgery that corrected it before I was even born so I have only seen the photographs.

My Dad said that he got into a fight one day, well, let me restate that. My Dad said he beat up somebody one day because they said something about his Mama being cross eyed. He said he argued with the boy that his Mama was NOT cross eyed, and when he wouldn't take it back he beat him up.

Then he got home that night and looked at his Mama and realized she was, indeed, cross eyed, and he had never even seen it. He told his brothers that he thought he was in trouble now because he had beat up this fellow for saying that about their Mama, and she was cross eyed.

Isn't it amazing what love can do for you. In his eyes he saw his Mama, and the things that others may have seen as faults he didn't even see at all.

*Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder*, isn't that so true?

You know I am full of scars from various scrapes and bumps and tumbles and surgeries and pregnancies. But more than that my very soul has taken some beatings that have left marks.

All my failures, and all of my mistakes may seem to me to be food for the vultures of the world to chew on and pass around. But when I get to the One who loves me, and I fall on my face at His feet, when I rise from being in His presence, and I worship Him in the *Beauty of Holiness,* He sees me through eyes of love. He loves me in spite of my humanity. Like the song says;

"Beautiful, that's how Jesus sees me"

I know this world doesn't understand the way I look, the way I live, the way I carry myself. Just like the tabernacle in the wilderness they can only see the badger skins. Oh, but on the inside there is such beauty. And when I look at the way that I live, when I look at myself, I see myself through the eyes of love for Him, for His word, for Holiness. I see the beauty in being "called out from among them" to be "separate." I see the beauty of being "peculiar."

Like my Daddy so many years ago I am blinded to what others see.

My precious Savior, there is none like you. I would that I could spend more time in Your presence, for there is never enough time. Let my life be a praise to You Lord. Let my lamp be ready, let me always have on the garments of the Bride. I am so thankful You found me, so thankful.

How I love You today, because of who You are.....