no air conditioning please

Each year I can hardly wait for the first warm day of season when I can throw open the windows and blow out the staleness of the winter, when I can sleep on the crisp sheets that were dried on the clothes line, when I can sit at my writing desk that is nestled between two windows and feel the warm air on my face, hear the birds chirping, the squirrels racing up and down the maple tree and feel the gentle breeze on my skin.  I hardly ever turn on the air conditioning I just can’t do it, and from what I have learned over the past few years this is quite the archaic practice. That is what the pioneers did not 21^st century people, 21^st century people have temperature controlled homes.  But I can’t bring myself to do it, I feel trapped, like a caged animal, so for most of the spring, summer and fall it is windows open, breathing in the smells of the fresh cut grass and blooms, feeling the warm air and enjoying the sounds that only that time of year can bring, because winter will come, it always does and it will be time to close up shop for the year, the leaves will fall, the birds will begin their retreat to warmer climates, the blooms will begin to fade and will eventually be layered beneath the snow, so I want to take it all in enjoy it while I have it.

In a lot of ways we have temperature controlled our hearts, our souls, the very essence of our beings.  We can’t imagine that God could possibly have something better in mind for us, so we stay in the familiar of our perfectly temperature controlled lives, where it is a comfortable 70 degrees, we shut the windows and shut out the beauty of what God wants to give us, the beauty of what He created for us to enjoy and what He created for us to do. 

 

Think it can't get any better,  it can.  Think it won't get any better, it will.  God wants to give us those things that are immeasurably beyond our comprehension, but we have to let go and give Him our temperature controlled lives.  I can’t tell you how many times over the years I have had the rug pulled out from underneath me.  Relationships that were lost only to be replaced with people whose goodness I didn’t even know existed, a job taken away and replaced with passion awakening in my heart that I never imagined, I never knew my heart could feel this full.  It took opening the windows and letting God blow out the staleness that was decaying my insides and letting Him replace it with His beauty, a beauty that only He can give, a beauty that He wants to give if only we would let go of our temperature controlled lives, swing the windows wide open and let Him breath it into us.  So throw open the windows and let the breeze in, inhale the majesty of God into your lungs, sing to your ears and brush across your cheek.