A stranger came by the other day with an offer that set me to thinking.
He wanted to buy the old barn that
sits out by the highway. I told him right off he was crazy. He was a city
type, you could tell by his clothes, his
car, his hands, and the way he talked. He said he was driving by and saw
that beautiful barn sitting out in the
tall grass and wanted to know if it was for sale. I told him he had a funny
idea of beauty. Sure, it was a
handsome building in its day. But then, there's been a lot of winters pass
with their snow and ice and howling
wind. The summer sun's beat down on that old barn till all the paint's
gone, and the wood has turned silver
gray. Now the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet,
that fellow called it beautiful. That set
me to thinking. I walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing
at that old barn. The stranger said he
planned to use the lumber to line the walls of his den in a new country
home he's building down the road. He
said you couldn't get paint that beautiful. Only years of standing in the
weather, bearing the storms and
scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful barn wood. It came to me
then. We're a lot like that, you and I.
Only it's on the inside that the beauty grows with us. Sure we turn silver
gray too... and lean a bit more than
we did when we were young and full of sap. But the Good Lord knows what
He's doing. And as the years
pass He's busy using the hard wealth of our lives, the dry spells and the
stormy seasons, to do a job of
beautifying our souls that nothing else can produce. And to think how often
folks holler because they want life
easy!
They took the old barn down today and hauled it away to beautify a rich
man's house. And I reckon someday
you and I'll be hauled off to Heaven to take on whatever chores the Good
Lord has for us. And I suspect
we'll be more beautiful then for the seasons we've been through here. and
just maybe even add a bit of
beauty to our Father's house.
May today there be peace within you. May you trust God that you are exactly
where you are meant to be. "I
believe that friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our
wings have trouble remembering how to
fly.
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