I Took a Picture Tonight

I took a picture tonight.
It's not artistic.
It's not pretty.

It's actually a terrible picture.

But I love it.

It's a picture of our couch.
Just our couch, sitting at the far end of our house, dimly lit and cluttered with a few pillows and one large tie blanket.

That view...

That view alone is nothing without the feelings and intangibles which I know surround it.

The clock ticking.
The quiet hum of the appliances.
The low light.
The settled, quiet feeling in my core.

That view is what I see after our communion nights are done.
The dishes have been brought to the kitchen.
The chairs slid back into their places.
Everyone else is in bed as I finish my labor of love.

And when it's finished, I take one final look back through the house to make sure I haven't missed anything.

And that is my view.
Just our couch, sitting at the far end of our house, dimly lit and cluttered with a few pillows and one large tie blanket.

No, I haven't missed anything.

When I see that view, I'm thinking about the people who just filled that couch from end to end. I'm thinking of the honest hearts and hopeful lives that utterly consume the currently empty spaces in front of my eyes. I'm feeling the peace that settles after being joined in earnest prayer. I'm hearing the calm of a house that has no fear of being alone. I'm recalling the array of Bibles and journals and notepads and laptops and phones and minds that soaked up and overflowed and contemplated and questioned and discovered and journeyed together to find purpose and direction and confirmation on that very floor.

I am blessed.

So radically blessed.

I know that not all people get attached to places, to things.
But I do.
Views. Sights. Smells.
They're mile markers.
The distance will be covered regardless, but little markers along the way remind me of where I'm going and what a beautiful road it's going to be.
This is one of those.

My mind is choosing to remember this oh-so-simple view, because wrapped up in it is the peace in my belly that is so incredibly fierce it almost overwhelms me with how expansive it is.

To use a cliche, my heart is full every time I see this view.

To be less cliche, my soul is trying to figure out what it is that's going on here... because I need to be able to carry it with me. That dimly lit couch needs to translate someday.

For now, it's perfect the way it is.