Sometimes I stop to admire little blooms along my way and other times I pick them and take them home with me! There are times when that tiny bloom isn't yet fully open.

This morning during a phone conversation I picked a tiny bloom in its infancy, yet even as I type, it’s beginning to open. As we chat with someone about a complex issue, we often gain clarity. So too, as I type, clarity often comes. I guess that’s because I need to examine and sift my thoughts, often exploring unsolved or uncomfortable questions. It feels a little like teasing out a knot in my thinking.

During this morning’s phone conversation we talked about the messy parts of a relationship with God. Even as I type that, it sounds a bit wrong, however I think it’s truth. Any relationship has its messy times, or at least I hope it’s that way for others because it’s certainly my reality. The messy times challenge us; things are often confusing, complicated or uncomfortable, sometimes they are downright painful. These times confront what we currently think and believe. If we let them, they nudge or push us to a new place in our thinking. Change is good, it indicates growth.

Just as we grow and change (although in my stage of my life not all the growing and changing is desirable!), healthy relationships are ever-changing. Getting to know the person we’re in relationship with, and understanding them a little better, can lead to a shift in our thinking and this often helps us see the person in a new light and even relate to them differently. I can’t see why it is any different in a relationship with God.

Other relationships that surround us are a varied mix of great, good, not-so-good, challenging and even difficult. It’s the process of travelling through these that helps us learn more about, and better understand each other. 

Tough, trying times test a relationship and can cause it to send its roots deep. I guess that’s what people mean when they say, “We've been friends through thick and thin.” If we can work through the tough times, it often cultivates a new dimension in our relating.

So, getting back to my phone conversation and messy times in our relationship with God - circumstances that challenge our perception, understanding or belief about God, about what He is like and how He connects with us.

An interesting thing happened while I was engrossed in the conversation – an unexpected, uninvited image popped into my head - perhaps one of the ways God ‘speaks’ to us? While I was listening to my friend talk about an event which feels messy for her right now, I ‘saw’ a vivid image of a painter taking daubs of paint and working them on a canvas. I could actually see the colours sitting, pushed up against each other. I didn't see a picture, just colours on a canvas – some dark, some bright. It was only as I teased out the thought, that I realised it literally was a perfect picture of what happens in our life.

Up close a canvas can seem merely a composite of colours and shades but from a more distant perspective a picture emerges. Sometimes further down the road, we get an inkling of the purpose of past life events, we sense they have been instrumental in directing or equipping us for later roles and tasks. However, there are times when we never get to see the reason for the messy aspects of our journey. It’s those times I've been thinking about today.

A very strange contradiction emerged in my thinking; that there are times when messy circumstances actually give us clarity in our relationship with God. They shift our perceptions of Him.

I remembered a time last year when life seemed very messy. The joyful anticipation of our first grandchild’s arrival, with all the associated excitement, was thrown into confusion when tests supported the very real possibility that the little one would be born with severe chromosomal abnormalities.

The five week journey I travelled in my relationship with God, before we received news to the contrary, taught me a lot about who He is and the way He cares and communicates with us, especially in difficult times.

The journey shifted my perception of God, it gave clarity and helped me understand more about Him, and that changed me. I relate differently to Him now because I know Him better. We travelled a difficult road together. During that messy time, I sensed in an almost tangible way, His love and care for me and for our family.

This leads me to believe the messy times have a purpose. Even if we never find out what that purpose is, we need not waste them. If we let them challenge us and move us, we can discover something new and perhaps even exciting in our relationship with God. I bet He loves it when we make that discovery!

                                                      

During a recent expedition I came across some ancient writings. Didn't know I was an explorer? Well I'm not, and that introduction is more than a little misleading, however, it’s not a complete lie. I did stumble across some old writing…my writing, penned more than a decade ago. I’d written about a trip Jeff and I took to Uluru.

Documentaries, photographs and friends' recommendations convinced us it was a place worth visiting. We were told to expect flies, lots of them! However arriving at the airport in the middle of winter, not a single fly greeted us. No doubt the freezing temperatures explained their absence.

My initial impression of the place just didn't seem to match the picture I had conjured in my head. Having heard so much about the heat, the bitterness of the cold surprised me. I’d imagined dry, perhaps even desolate, flat country, bereft of vegetation.

We discovered no documentary, no colourful description and no collection of photographs adequately describes the place! It was not flat as I’d expected, and not totally without vegetation, even though it hadn't rained in months. I remember being surprised just how red the soil was, a striking contrast to the spectacular blue of the sky… and nothing had prepared us for the sheer enormity of The Rock. Standing at its base was a very big experience!

Being avid snappers, we eagerly awaited the sunset and the subsequent sunrise. Although words can’t do it justice, I’ll try to describe the sunset experience.

It was cold, a still cold that doesn't come up and hit you but slowly seeps in. The longer we stood there, the colder we got. Surrounded by quiet, almost reverend voices, people waited. I didn't really know what to expect. I’d seen the famous images of Uluru at sunset and I think I believed the colours were a little exaggerated.

As we stood with our backs to the sun and our expectant faces turned towards The Rock, the most remarkable thing began to happen. The sky slowly took on a richer, more piercing hue of blue, and right before our eyes The Rock slowly illuminated. A breathtaking transformation took place. Its dull blend of grey and brown shifted to more vibrant shades. It seemed The Rock was lit from its centre, and the living red gradually grew in intensity. Standing tall against the magnificent blue of the evening sky, it was a breathtaking sight and a very moving experience!

I stood and watched the evolving spectacle, in absolute awe at this pinnacle of splendour. However it was just as the sun slipped unnoticed behind me that something interesting and quite unexpected happened.

As we stood in the hushed crowd, glancing around me, I noticed every eye was glued on the radiant beauty of The Rock. I'm not sure why, but at that moment I turned to glance at the sunset behind me. What I saw took my breath away; the most spectacular sunset, one that surpassed any I’d ever seen before! The memory of it remains with me still.

I was amazed. I had spent minutes absorbing the beauty of The Rock in all its sunset splendour, and now I was confronted with an even more powerful display. It took me completely by surprise. The sky was splashed with the most vibrant reds, purples, oranges and golds, lighting the clouds with luminous edging. It was breathtaking!

Enchanted with the Rock’s beauty, I had been totally unaware of the very source of its beauty. If I had remained with my face towards The Rock I would have missed it altogether. Right there at that moment I remember being struck by a powerful parallel. Standing at Uluru’s vast base, I felt the greatness of the place, of the sunset, and my thoughts turned to God. It’s hard to be surrounded by such magnificence and greatness without being moved, without pondering its origin. That was certainly my experience.

Recalling it now, I realise how easy it is to miss the source of the many amazing things in our world - the miracle of birth, the sparkling beauty of a new morning, sun on bejewelled leaves after rain and the form of a tiny baby’s hand.

We can be so taken by the beauty that we completely miss or perhaps forget to acknowledge their source. An old book that has stood the test of time, puts it like this, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

Greater than the created beauty…is the Creator of the beauty.

Something interesting happened to me a few weeks ago. I smile even now as I recall it. Out walking in an old pair of white shorts, I realised the elastic in them had seen better days. I was sad. They were cool, comfortable and best of all, needed no ironing after a wash. Soon, very soon, they would need replacing.

Shortly afterwards I was driving near my local op shop and decided to stop in and see if I could pick up a bargain or two. I love bargains but I especially love op shops! The whole concept resonates with me - something discarded by one can be valued by another.

As I turned the car into the car park I remembered my white shorts and without much thought, said aloud, “God, what I need is another pair of white shorts, just like the pair that’s dying.” Now, I wasn’t using ‘God’ in the way the word is often used today. I was actually telling God something, chatting with Him, if you like. It wasn’t a serious, ‘I need’ kind of request, just a passing comment... and then I didn’t think any more about it.

Inside the shop, I was thrilled when I found a beautifully made pair of leather boots for our soon-to-be-toddler grandson. Then as I wandered the clothing aisles, my eyes lighted on a pair of shorts and I remembered my earlier comment.

As I took them down from the rack, I could scarcely believe my eyes. These were not just any pair of shorts. They were white and they were made of the exact same wash-and-wear material as my old ones! A fitting length for a lady whose legs no longer deserve exhibition, I couldn’t help smiling at the engaging ‘coincidence’.

Even though the tag had been cut off the band, and even before I headed in the direction of the change rooms, I just knew they would fit me perfectly! God heard my words because He always hears, even passing comments, and this time He answered “Yes” to an unimportant, incidental request. 

To me that day, His “Yes” spoke volumes. It seems to me that He cares about even the smallest details of our lives because He likes us a lot! He made us and He likes us! I like my new shorts too and they walk with me often. Even better than their predecessors, they’re lined! It’s so like God to go over and above what we ask or think.