Presence

Honestly, from this distance you probably don't know what you're looking at.

There are trees and shrubs and sunlight and shadows and standing in the midst of it all, something appears from behind the brush.

It's Jesus.

Just so you know.  You're looking at Jesus.

When I first came to Hope, when I took that first path and found the Memorial Garden and then the statue of Jesus, I thought I was on a treasure hunt.

I have never been a "nature lover," and I still freak out like a crazy woman when I run into a spider web, but at Hope, the church was more than the building.

God flowed.

God flowed like water, like life-giving water, into the surrounding area, into the trees and the paths and the sunlight and rain.

Everywhere there was God.

I realized the other day when I took that picture of the hanging hibiscus what I had been missing over the past year and a half that my illness has kept me at home most days.

I had been missing that "every knee shall bow and every tongue confess" feeling you have when you realize you are in the presence of God.

It is humbling and magnificent and glorious.

It has brought me to tears.

And this weathered statue of Jesus, really hidden behind the trees, is merely a reminder of what it is that you are feeling.

It is God.

In all His glory.