I'm sitting here tonight in my third story apartment with my sliding glass balcony door open to the darkness, feeling the fresh night breeze. With the cooler fall weather finally staying consistent, I've been doing this for the past few evenings. When the air blows in, it gives me deep sense of well-being.
When I was a kid, my mom rarely allowed windows to be opened. In the summer they were shut because of the air conditioning and in the winter because of the central heat. As well, every day of the year as soon as the faintest hint of dusk fell, huge heavy drapes were drawn closed with a snap because someone might see in the house at night.
My dad was a chain smoker. Like most people growing up around cigarette smoke, at the time I wasn't conscious of the smell in my daily environment. Now I realize that living years shut up in the house with all that smoke, I must have smelled like an ash tray. I also have a pretty good idea where some of my later respiratory problems started.
But at the time, I only knew I loved to open my windows (when mom wasn't looking, or just for a few minutes in the daytime before she came and closed them) and feel the fresh breeze blow into my room. I loved it, but it wasn't enough. As soon as the wind started blowing the trees against the glass of my small town window, I would run out into the backyard and climb a tree- some kind of skinny tree with a bunch of low branches making it easy to climb up quickly. I would get as high as I could, just to feel the wild whipping motion and clean air on my face.
Without being conscious of it, I think I was trying to escape the pollution that was in my home. Of all kinds.
It reminds me of how the Holy Spirit blew into my choked-up ash tray of a life with His fresh wind, and blew off the debris that other people's second hand smoke had left on it.
So now, even though I live in a city apartment, I open things up as much as I can, all year round, round the clock. When I feel the living breeze coming through the door and windows, it makes me feel alive too.
Is it any wonder in the early Vineyard days that I loved the song, Sweet Wind by David Ruis:
There’s a wind a-blowin’, all across the land
A fragrant breeze of Heaven
Blowin’ once again
Don’t know where it comes from
Don’t know where it goes
But let it blow over me
Oh, sweet wind, come and blow over me
I still do. I still love His sweet Spirit wind. And real wind symbolizes that for me. So if you see me standing out in a windstorm, just leave me alone. I may need some debris blown off my soul.
But tonight, the bit wafting through the door is enough.
When I was a kid, my mom rarely allowed windows to be opened. In the summer they were shut because of the air conditioning and in the winter because of the central heat. As well, every day of the year as soon as the faintest hint of dusk fell, huge heavy drapes were drawn closed with a snap because someone might see in the house at night.
My dad was a chain smoker. Like most people growing up around cigarette smoke, at the time I wasn't conscious of the smell in my daily environment. Now I realize that living years shut up in the house with all that smoke, I must have smelled like an ash tray. I also have a pretty good idea where some of my later respiratory problems started.
But at the time, I only knew I loved to open my windows (when mom wasn't looking, or just for a few minutes in the daytime before she came and closed them) and feel the fresh breeze blow into my room. I loved it, but it wasn't enough. As soon as the wind started blowing the trees against the glass of my small town window, I would run out into the backyard and climb a tree- some kind of skinny tree with a bunch of low branches making it easy to climb up quickly. I would get as high as I could, just to feel the wild whipping motion and clean air on my face.
Without being conscious of it, I think I was trying to escape the pollution that was in my home. Of all kinds.
It reminds me of how the Holy Spirit blew into my choked-up ash tray of a life with His fresh wind, and blew off the debris that other people's second hand smoke had left on it.
So now, even though I live in a city apartment, I open things up as much as I can, all year round, round the clock. When I feel the living breeze coming through the door and windows, it makes me feel alive too.
Is it any wonder in the early Vineyard days that I loved the song, Sweet Wind by David Ruis:
There’s a wind a-blowin’, all across the land
A fragrant breeze of Heaven
Blowin’ once again
Don’t know where it comes from
Don’t know where it goes
But let it blow over me
Oh, sweet wind, come and blow over me
I still do. I still love His sweet Spirit wind. And real wind symbolizes that for me. So if you see me standing out in a windstorm, just leave me alone. I may need some debris blown off my soul.
But tonight, the bit wafting through the door is enough.
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