Colors of the Wind
May 17, 2010
I had a friend in high school who went back to Jordan every summer to see his parents. As soon as it really got hot every year he would comment that at least in Jordan there was a breeze. Growing up in Upstate South Carolina, I had become very much accustomed to this difference. Hot summer days were just that: hot, sweltering even. Any cool breeze typically came from a fan or air conditioner.
This summer I’m working at a screenprinting company where I was told it was common that the pressroom would be an average of 8 degrees hotter than the actual outdoor temperature. I attempted to mentally prepare for this heat, but I was rather unsuccessful. My first week, our building reached the current record high for my time there of 97 degrees. On a 93 degree day last week, as I worked on a large order of shirts, something hit me. It was a strong, cool breeze from the open door near me. I didn’t realize just how much I appreciated that breeze until that moment. As it snuck its way into the building, the breeze brought with it relief and a strange calmness.
This breeze made me think about all of the refreshing “breezes” in our lives and just what they bring us. As my mind wandered I thought of a few examples in my life.
My best friend, Kaci, just got back a couple of weeks ago from a three-month mission trip to Swaziland in Africa. In the 11+ years we’ve been best friends, the two of us have been through a lot in our individual lives and we’ve seen each other through it every step of the way. She is in a sense one of those “breezes” in my life, one that at times was easy to take for granted. When she was gone, though, I could feel it. There were things that I only shared with her and only she could understand, not being able to communicate with her was difficult. When we went to pick her up from the airport and I saw her come up the escalator, a breeze came back into my life. My best friend was back and our friendship naturally took up right where we had left off, as if we had ever left off at all.
Driving on the road back to Clemson today, I was reminded of another breeze. This one is a little more literal in a sense. I was riding with my windows down, taking in the cool after-rain summer breeze. With my music blaring, I was reminded of another summer; a summer riding in the Black Pearl, listening to season-defining music and falling in love way more than I even knew. Nothing can replace that feeling, just the pure goodness of it all. I love that it is a feeling that can be repeated over and over. I hope it always is. Even just that music, especially from the original aBo CD, brings that feeling all over again.
It amazes me how God relates things in our lives to the natural world his has created. It’s so awesome that he created our minds in a way that we can draw those connections and I’m glad that he uses those times to remind me what he has done in my life and the incredible things he has blessed me with. I’m grateful for the breezes that bring good memories, the breezes that bring great friendship, and the breezes that bring just plain relief. All the colors of the wind…
