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,
can produce beautiful barn
wood.
It came
to me then. We're a lot like that old barn, 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 weather 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 there be peace within
you today.
May you trust God that you are exactly
where you are meant to be
~author
unknown~ 
