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The
Old Weathered Barn
Author
Unknown
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 wealth 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
today there be peace within you.
May
you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
"I
believe that friends are quiet angels who lift us to our feet when our
wings
have trouble remembering how to fly."
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Copyright
© 2006, Jace Carlton. All International Rights Reserved.
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