In the midst reading Anne of Green Gables aloud to my daughter recently, I had to stop at the end of the following paragraph and sigh, so complete was my delight in reading such well chosen words that painted a picture of longing not only on my mind but also in my heart:
"The Barry garden was a bowery wilderness of flowers which would have delighted Anne's heart at any time less fraught with destiny. It was encircled by huge old willows and tall firs, beneath which flourished flowers that loved the shade. Prim, right-angled paths, neatly bordered with clamshells, intersected it like moist red ribbons and in the beds between old-fashioned flowers ran riot. There were rosy bleeding hearts and great splendid crimson peonies; white, fragrant narcissi and thorny, sweet Scotch roses; pink and blue and white columbines and lilac-tinted Bouncing Bets; clumps of southernwood and ribbon grass and mint; purple Adam-and-Eve, daffodils, and masses of sweet clover white with its delicate, fragrant, feathery sprays; scarlet lightning that shot its fiery lances over prim white musk-flowers; a garden it was where sunshine lingered and bees hummed, and winds, beguiled into loitering, purred and rustled."
It reminded me of another paragraph that left me the same way feeling the same way in Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm:
"Mr. Cobb felt like a fish removed from his native element and left panting in the sand; there was no evading the awful responsibility of a reply, for Rebecca's eyes were like searchlights that pierced the fiction of his brain and perceived the bald spot on the back of his head."
As avid reader and aspiring writer (in my best daydreams), I love to soak up beautiful words. Whether they are written on a page, spoken in a conversation, or launched from a pulpit, I tend to gather the ideas they express like precious stones to turn over in my mind that I may admire their beauty and take in the message they are meant to convey. The best words speak not only to my mind and heart, but also to my soul, and they do not leave without transforming me into something I was not before I heard them.
But there is one Word that is like a diamond among pebbles, that is worth pondering and treasuring long after other words have ceased to work their wonder. That Word is Jesus.
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)
Before there were words, there was the Word. That Word spoke the universe into existence, breathed life into the first man, pronounced the curse on the first sin; directed, pleaded, promised, and warned through Israel's history, and then the unimaginable but wonderful happened.
"The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us." (John 1:14)
That Word came to man by becoming man, and so brought redemption from the curse, kept every promise, pointed man back to God, and gave hope of future restoration.
This year, I want resolve again to marvel over this Word, collecting the treasures Jesus intended to convey in His coming to this world. I trust by the end of this year I will not be the same person, but instead be transformed by the power of the message God sent in Him. Will you join me?
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