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.
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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 on the Great Sky Ranch.
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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.
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May
today there be peace within you.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be. |
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