When You Walk by the Way

Morning came much earlier today than I would have hoped.  As I was starting breakfast, Big Brother was in the throes of an energetic monologue about his herd of imaginary friends, "the kids."  Sis was standing by the sliding glass door and started pointing and shouting something and calling to me.  Frustrated with all the noise and distraction, I managed to break away from Big Brother's tale to see what Sis' issue was.

As I came along side her, chiding her for shouting, I saw what she was pointing to:  the eastern sky was brilliant  as the sun was just beginning to rise from behind the mountains.  The sky was filled with clouds, glowing pink like spectacular cotton candy.

I snuggled her to me and agreed, "Yes, Sis, the sky is beautiful!"  Two days ago I would have stopped there and just enjoyed the view, but yesterday I heard some one make the point that conveying our spiritual values to our children isn't about well-planned family devotions, it's about expressing our faith every day in every little situation as Deuteronomy 6:5-9 describes:


You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. ⁶ These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart. ⁷You shall teach them diligently to your sons and shall talk of them when you sit in your house and when you walk by the way and when you lie down and when you rise up. ⁸ You shall bind them as a sign on your hand and they shall be as frontals on your forehead.⁹You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.


And so I called Big Brother over  and said something like, "Isn't this beautiful?  Isn't it amazing what beautiful things God makes for us to enjoy looking at?  This just makes me want to say thank you to God.  Let's say our verses together to God."

And so we quoted the first two verses of Psalm 100 with our motions:

Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth.
 Worship the LORD with gladness;
   come before him with joyful songs. 


It was so beautiful!  Sis really knows the verses and I  loved to see her wave her hands when we said "Worship the Lord"  as we were enjoying God's beautiful creation together.  I wish I'd snapped a picture of the morning sky to share, but I suspect it would not have done it justice anyhow.

Edited to add:  My friend posted a picture of this very sunrise on her blog.  Click through to see more of her great photography and scrapping.