Looking.

Today I awoke determined to find joy, determined to notice all of the tiny miracles and blessings around me. 

I looked at my phone. There was a text from a fellow joy-seeker, "Today, look. Just look."

So I tried, looking around my house for beauty, for blessings. Uggh. Yesterday I gave up on trying to keep the house clean, and finding beauty in a house that looks like a seasick yak threw up all over it is, um, hard. 

Aha! I could look outside. There's always beauty outside. 
I walk out of the house and I'm greeted by the scent of Autumn and the warm sun. I squint. It's been far too long since I've looked. 
Walking around to the side of the house, looking for a warm spot of sun in the chilly breeze, I stand and soak up the sun.
Then, whoosh, a wasp lands on my right knee and takes my breath away. I'm standing there, holding my breath, looking. 

This exquisite creature rushes from my knee to the grass, stops there to clean itself. I kneel immediately and just look. How have I never noticed how beautiful wasps are before? 
Because you've never looked before, you blind geezer. 
For minutes straight I look at this tiny monster and grin, and pray. Thanking God for the blessings and the beauty and suddenly overwhelmed by joy. 

I hear noises behind me and hear a door slam. People are coming out of the house next door, done looking it over. Potential neighbors. They all pour out of the house and get into a car, except for one man who looks to be in his mid-fourties. He just stands there with his hands in his pockets, curious about this curly-haired girl kneeling and looking in her front yard. 
"What're you watching?" he asks me, obviously amused.
I spin around and grin. "A wasp." I say, full to the brim with joy I couldn't contain if I tried. 
At least he knows what kind of neighbor he'll be getting if he buys the house, right?
He smiles at me, chuckles. "Oh." he simply says, and walks away laughing as if he expected it to be something actually interesting. I grin harder because I know it seems silly, but I love this silliness and I can't get enough of this childlike wonder, this looking and finding and being filled.

I continue to sit there and grin and cherish my secret- that God is everywhere and joy is everywhere and I can kneel in my front yard estatic with joy, giving thanks to the Creator, while staring at a wasp or a leaf, marveling at the marvelousness that makes up this crazy life. A wide-eyed wonder in God's spoken world.

The wasp flies away, and I lay on my back in the grass and begin to count the different shades of blue in the Autumn sky. And I give thanks for every one of them, overwhelmed with gratitude.