You need the joy in the ordinary. There are times when every day life is just so grand and glorious.
I want you to know what that’s like.
You need some belly-aching, can’t-breathe, tears-in-your-eyes, knee-slapping laughter.
You need to sit in a parked car in a traffic circle with a dipped cone of ice cream with people who care about you and act silly just to make you happy. Even when you sneeze on them and are so exhausted that you can’t hold a conversation, they will love you and laugh with you at the simple joys of life.
You need to be friends with people who walk out of their office to go and give five dollars to a homeless man. You need to stand there in the cold and hold hands with them and pray for his heart and pray that he experiences love in every part of his life.
I want you to experience the adventures to be had sitting at bonfires, restaurants, coffee shops & on airplanes; fumbling over awkward introductions and crashing into the joy of turning strangers into friends.
Oh, that you would be broken by the beauty of the ordinary things in your life!
Life is happening and people are living and the world is crazy and beautiful. And I want us to see it.
I want us to be moved by the miracle of a newborn in our arms. I want our hearts to be stirred by the simple act of someone complimenting our smile, or strangers saying hi as we walk down the sidewalk.
There is true beauty in everything that is happening around you.
The comfortable doesn’t always have to be so colorless. There’s a dimension of breathtaking awe that could come over you if you would just take time to appreciate the constant love of the people in your household or the steady affection of friends who have known you for so many years.
You have a beautiful life. Even when you’re restless and ready for an epic adventure or for your big moment to arrive. You need to see that you have precious and irreplaceable things and people around you. Their consistent presence in your life is one of the greatest joys you will ever know.
Be grateful for the dinners with family, the kettle corn with co-workers, the movie nights with funny friends. Even when you’re holding up your pant legs to try and keep them from dragging in the mud of your fears and failures, be grateful that at the end of the day you were given the strength to keep plowing your feet through the pain.
You have greatness all around you. I have it all around me. I want us to see it. With every glance through our not-so-rose-colored-lenses, I want us to recognize that even in the day-to-day there is so much awe to be had for the ordinary
ASHLIN BOYLES 