"It will never look like this again!"

“It will never look like this again!”

            Many years ago dusk was falling  The sun was almost down, and a vivid orange and gold sunset filled the west.  Our family was visiting western states, including the Grand Canyon, White Sands National Monument, Four Corners, the Petrified Forest.  The day had been long and rigorous and the van had gotten very quiet.  I suddenly noticed that Sarah, our younger daughter, still had out her sketchbook and colored pencils.  I suggested that she needed to put them away; the light was almost gone.  Her reply rebuked me.  “But, Mama, the sky will never look like this again.”  I agreed she could continue, then looked to see what she was drawing.  The black outline of a butte, there in the desert, was silhouetted against a vibrant red orange at the horizon, fading up to peach, yellow, and gold.  Indeed, we would never see that sight again.

            I was reminded of that conversation this week by another conversation.  This time an adult was speaking.  “I asked my husband what was so special about that tree reflected in the water.  It was just like the one we had just seen reflected in the water, except maybe there was the addition of a rock.”

            I admit that I was puzzled by those statements.  I never want to live in a world that has lost its wonder.  I never want to lose an awe at the infinite variety of colors and shapes and patterns.

            Again, many years ago, I talked with a photographer who had been saved late in life.  He said, “I thought I was aware of beauty, but something happened when I got saved.  Now I was overwhelmed by beauty.”

            He showed me the song, “I am His and He is mine.”  The second verse says,

            Heav’n above is softer blue, Earth around is sweeter green;

            Something lives in ev’ry hue Christless eyes have never seen!

            Birds with gladder songs o’erflow,       

 Flow’rs with deeper beauties shine,

 Since I know, as now I know, I am His and He is mine.

So what should the beauty of nature say to us?  May I take the words of another song?  “Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee; How great Thou art, how great Thou art!”  May we see the sky that will never look like this again.  May we see the reflection of the tree in the water.  May we see how great our God is!

                                                            ~~Faith Himes Lamb