Good morning…

Simple pleasures are truly the best. The aroma and taste of my freshly brewed coffee. Breathing in the big sky on my private back porch. Following a hot bath, the tender touch of a Q-tip relieving moisture from my ears. Simple pleasures are truly the best. The challenge for all of us is slowing down enough to notice, to appreciate, to savor with all of our senses the tiny blessings sprinkled throughout our ordinary days.

As she takes baby steps into her full recovery from debilitating clinical depression, the main character in our semester’s book The Hidden Life: Revelations from a Holy Journey starts for the first time to notice, to appreciate, to savor with all her senses. On page 78 we read: “She began to experience a few of what she calls moments of heightened perception. It might be a beautiful sunset, a stranger’s smile on her walk to town, or the sound of a child’s laughter over the lake. In the past, she failed to see these kinds of things, but now when she was given these moments, she would stop and pay attention. She would listen to them and stay with them as long as she could and write about them in her journal. All of this was strengthening her spirituality by taking her outside herself. She was waking up to the mystery and the beauty and the wonder. ‘These little glimpses of beauty and healing gave me the hope and the courage to keep going,’ says Betty Skinner. ‘I was beginning to feel comfortable in my own skin for the first time in my life. It was so simple, but it was the most tremendous thing I had ever experienced.'”

We are all baby stepping our way into a full recovery of our true, God-designed self. Stop and pay attention. Listen and stay with. Write and wake up to the mystery, the beauty, the wonder. As we feel increasingly more comfortable in our own skin, simple experiences will be most tremendous.

The revelation of God is whole and pulls our lives together.
The signposts of God are clear and point out the right road.
The life-maps of God are right, showing the way to joy.
The directions of God are plain and easy on the eyes, Psalm 19:7-8 (MSG),

Sue