THE WEATHERED OLD BARN

Amongst some of the old stuff collecting cob webs in my house are more than few pictures of old barns. I love their old rough looks but mostly I admire their endurance and the idea that they have sheltered so many in all kinds of weather thru-out their long, long lives.

A couple weeks ago, my son called and asked if I wanted him to bring me home.. some of the wood from a very, very old barn they were tearing down at an ranch he was working at. Knowing me, he rephrased his question to "how much of the barn wood do you want me to bring home?" Everyone knows I love old STUFF! (as stated in a recent blog) I also enjoy making old, antiquidated- looking signs from pieces of rotting and weathered wood.. but..getting hold of pieces of REAL... OLD..barnwood...JACKPOT!!! We could have gone back up and gathered more ..(they had a whole BARN!!) but because of time restraints and because the rancher was in a rush to just get the old barn torn down and gone..I'm happy to settle for a few.. sweet, gray planks. I love my son!

Surprisingly, in the same week..my sister sent me this lovely email with pictures capturing the beauty of old barns! The author is Unknown. It had much meaning and I enjoyed it so much ....I hope you do too.

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 by 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 hm 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 was 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 alot 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 wealth of our lives, the dry spells, and the stormy seasons, to do a job of beautfying our souls that nothing else can produce. And how often folks holler because they want life easy!

They took the old barn down on Friday 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 add a bit of beauty to our Father's House.

May today there be Peace with you.

May you trust God that you are exactlywhere you are meant to be

~Unknown Author~