water spiders

so i'm sitting outside on my dock right now. it's so nice out here - it's dusk, so it's cooling down outside and a deep blue/gray color seems to be surrounding everything. the crickets are chirping pretty loud, the birds are still singing, and i can hear the frogs croaking too. a raccoon just walked up and stood about 3 feet away from me (a rather frightening experience), my dad just cut the grass a few hours ago, so the smell of fresh cut grass is in the air...wow i love it. i love the outside.

i was just sitting here "studying" and among the vastness of the sky and the water around me i noticed the tiny little water spiders gliding ever so smoothly across the surface of the pond. that's when it hit me...

so often we look beyond the "small" things in life. they are so easy to overlook if we want to -- we can focus our attention on the big picture, on the things that "matter" so much, on the things that are so beautiful and breathtaking, that we forget about the little things that might not be so great to look upon, or might not be so breathtaking, or might seem insignificant...but they are there. they will always be there - and we can choose to notice them or not. They, like the water spiders are easily seen if we just look...look closely at our surroundings. we forget about the homeless man who doesn't have a bed to sleep in tonight, we forget about the kid in africa who was born with AIDS and is seemingly wasting away in an orphanage full of children just like him, we forget about the single mom with 3 kids who is working 2 jobs in order to put food on the table, we overlook the elderly who have so much to offer but in our eyes seem so insignificant. we overlook the things in life we choose to overlook - the things that might not be quite so prominent or that might not be quite so wonderful to look upon. but they are there...they are created in the image of Christ...they are beautiful. Don't forget to notice them...gaze upon them....love them...no matter how small they seem in our eyes.