A PERSPECTIVE ABOUT
OLD BARNS
Only years of standing in the weather, bearing
the storms and scorching sun, only that can
produce beautiful barn wood.

A stranger came by the
other day with an offer that set me to thinking. He wanted
to buy the old barn that sits out by the highway. I
told him right off he was crazy. He was a city type,
you could tell by his clothes, his car, his hands,
and the way he talked. He said he was driving by
and saw that beautiful barn sitting out in the tall grass
and wanted to know if it was for sale. I told him
he had a funny idea of beauty.

Sure, it was a handsome
building in its day. But then, there's been a lot of winters
pass with their snow and ice and howling wind.The
summer sun's beat down on that old barn till all
the paint's gone, and the wood has turned silver gray. Now
the old building leans a good deal, looking kind of tired. Yet,
that fellow called it beautiful.

That set me to thinking. I
walked out to the field and just stood there, gazing at that
old barn. The stranger said he planned to use the lumber
to line the walls of his den in a new country home
he's building down the road.
He said you couldn't get paint that beautiful.
Only years of standing in the weather, bearing the storms
and scorching sun, only that can produce beautiful
barn wood.

It came to me then. We're
a lot like that, you and I. Only it's on the inside that
the beauty grows with us.Sure we turn silver gray too... and
lean a bit more than we did when we were young and full
of sap.
But the Good Lord knows what He's doing. And as the years
pass He's busy using the hard weather of our lives, the dry
spells and the stormy seasons to do a job of beautifying our
souls that nothing else can produce.
And to think how often folks holler because they want life easy!

They took the old barn
down today and hauled it away to beautify a rich man's
house. And I reckon someday you and I'll be hauled off to
Heaven to take on whatever chores the Good Lord has for
us on the Great Sky Ranch.
And I suspect we'll be more beautiful then for the seasons
we've been through here... and just maybe even add a bit of
beauty to our Father's house.

May there be peace within
you today. May you trust God that you are exactly
where you are meant to be.

And...I do sincerely
thank God for my wonderful friends and family
who love me even though I show signs of weathering.

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