Favorite Things

If I were to re-write "My favorite things," it would go something like this:

Snowflakes on roses and singing with radios, poems and eating a bowl full of Cheerios,

Starry nights in the prairie and typewriter keys, these are a few of my favorite things...

I am a firm believer in miracles. I think they happen everyday, and when we look for beauty in the most ordinary places, that's where they pop up and shine. Miracles are in our favorite things, however our songs might go. They are in the sunrise, the glorious laugh of a suffering friend, driving at night with your favorite song on the radio and the free feeling of square dancing in the kitchen. One of my favorite miracle stories is the Virgin of Guadalupe. Mary appeared to Juan Diego, a completely ordinary Mexican man who was fighting anxiety and trying to figure out the world. His uncle was dying, and he was one of the few Christian/Catholics living in his area. Mary appeared and told him that he needed to tell the bishop to build a church.

It seemed crazy at the time, how would anyone believe that she had actually appeared? When Juan was attempting to avoid the situation, Mary purposefully appeared and left him roses in the middle of December. Everything else dead in the freezing cold, yet these velvety roses endured the biting wind and ice to tell him a story of truth: a story of faith and love.

Maybe, just maybe, we're given roses in winter too. Maybe not quite as straight forward as literally finding a bouquet of them on a middle of no-where hill (although, who knows?) In our most helpless moments, our coldest, darkest times, when no matter how many blankets we're offered our hearts won't take them, we can find a rose. These times are definitely looming. There's a constant winter in this empty-promising society. Something is artificial, trapped in our routines with no new beginnings, bleak skies and the bitterness of measuring up.

We become trapped in blizzards of chaos. Busyness and anxiety make us turn to ice inside. Like we live in a suffocating igloo, lonely and expected to do so much with so little that we stop believing in miracles. We allow the frostbite of helplessness and unworthiness to turn us into ice sculptures, cold and unchanging, staring blankly into a frozen future. This winter leaves our souls constantly thirsting for a sip of something warm. Something to take away the sting.

The miracle is alive dear fighters. Even though the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared more than 500 years ago, the rose of truth has stayed alive. And the truth is this: God doesn't fail. He is perfect love, so we don't have to brace ourselves for the future. Although this ice storm continues on, the rose is proof that there's something greater than the craziest storm out there. And that's reason enough to shake our fists in the cold, scream at the top of our lungs and quote Queen Elsa, "The cold never bothered me anyway!"

Be on the lookout for miracles. Cause you never know, they might be hiding in a crowded hallway, a glance at the sky, or a snowflake in your hair. Don't forget how important you are. And don't lose control, cause you might just be someone else's rose in winter.

 More favorite things for when the cold in too much (and the dog bites)...
-smell of cookies baking
-handwritten cards
-listening to Bluegrass music with Daddy
-oversized sweatshirts
-old glass insulators
-nut butters
-my extremely highlighted and written in Bible
-my cowgirl boots

What are your favorite things? Have a lovely day. My dad took this picture in Downtown of a sunrise the other morning!