Image of a Meadowlark

It looked like any ordinary brown bird as it pecked its away across our front yard. Then it snapped to attention, beak pointed toward the sky, totally still, focused on something unseen. The bird's bright yellow breast stamped with the bold black V made me gasp.

The image of that meadowlark has stayed with me for over 20 years.

When we were many times uprooted from close friends and comfortable surroundings, God said, "Look up!"

When internal and external stressors threatened to tear our marriage and our family apart, God said, "Look up!"

When our family was touched by darkness and confusion, God said, "Look up!"

When I was tormented with guilt and fear, "God said, "Look up!"

When I had to confront issues and situations and people I never dreamed I'd have to, God said, "Look up!"

When I was so mad at God--and told Him so--and began to wonder if He cared or even existed at all, He said, "Look up!"

When my heart hurt so much I could barely drag myself to church and when I did all I did was cry, God said, "Look up!"

When dreams and expectations lay in ashes at my feet, God said, "Look up!"

When I lost my joy of writing and teaching, God said, "You are too strong for me to use. You haven't hurt enough to help others, gone deep enough to lift them up. Look up!"

When I suffer from what-ifs and what-could-have-beens, God says, "Look up!"

For all things will work together for good when the pieces come together in my timing. What seems like forever to you is but a blink of my eye. Just stop, be still, listen, and look up! Get your eyes off yourself and your circumstances. Fix your eyes on me and look up!

Lord, help me to be like that meadowlark, not drab and dreary pecking away with head down, but beautiful with my head lifted high. Help me to keep my eyes fixed on you and to look up, knowing that as much as you care and provide for the sparrow and the meadowlark, you love me so much more. Nothing can come to me that hasn't first been filtered through your loving fingers. And even when things look the darkest, I can trust that you are creating something beautiful and preparing something far greater. You are my hope when life seems hopeless. I will not lose hope.

I am looking up.

"Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." II Corinthians 4:16-18

Are you looking down or up?