The Worship Of Yardwork and Breadmaking

"Evelyn Underhill said, 'Spiritual reading is, or at least can be, second only to prayer as a developer and support of the inner life.' And The Message of the Wesleys contains this striking sentence: 'It cannot be that people should grow in grace unless they give themselves to reading.' Surely a gracious God provides for the illiterate in other ways, but for most of us, the Scriptures and varied spiritual writings guide us to a deeper understanding of the truth that set us free."
-brennan manning, the ragamuffin gospel, page 12

Reading refreshes me. It broadens my thinking, challenges my soul. It can encourage, as well as convict, inspire and reassure. But reading is not everything. One of the blogs I read put it well:

"take the time to knit (or cook or sew, or scrapbook, or hot glue pom-poms onto your daughters keds, or whatever lovely crafty thing you like to do), Because I find it impossible to read a science book, or go to an aquarium, or to exposit the first couple of chapters of Genesis and not be overwhelmed with God's delight in beauty and variation, and in the actual process of design in creating. It's fascinating, don't you think, that in the tremendous act of creation, God chooses, not to speak the completed universe into existence all in one shot, but instead to spend six days creating and ordering the earth (days 4, 5&6 of creation filling up what was created on days 1, 2&3 - - look! it's there!) and its inhabitants into the final "very good".
Do we not, then, reflect the image of our creator when we ourselves order and create?"

-naomi smith, "on why i knit every once in a while instead of expositing scriptures", july 15, 2007

Sometimes I just need to do something. Sometimes, in order to process everything and make sense of any of it, I need to take the things I have read and go. It may be for a run, it may be to lay in the grass and watch ladybugs, or even kneed a batch of bread. Today it was bread and scrapbooking, and in a little while, after it cools down a bit, will include gardening.
I am sorting through the past month, seeking God's heart, and asking Him to heal mine.
It may take a while, but I know that the end result will be a little more beautiful, a little more perfect, a little more like His.
Because He is a God of creativity as well as mercy. He wants to have me in His Image, wants me to show His glory. So ... the "work" God started many years ago is still in process.
You know what is something that amazes me? That God choses to use both the seemingly great things, as well as the seemingly insignificant things, to make me bow my head and worship Him. He never changes, but is continually revealing new facets of Himself. He is good.