La Vita è Bella

Sometimes the urgency of our hunger, blinds us to the fact that we are already at the feast.

Author Unknown

My favorite foreign film is La vita è bella. The story tells of a Jewish book keeper named Guido who marries his love.  The two have a son and live happily together until the occupation of Italy by German forces. In an attempt to hold his family together and help his son survive the horrors of a Jewish Concentration Camp, Guido tells his son that the Holocaust is a game and that the grand prize for winning is a tank.  The son must hide all day, and Guido makes him laugh with silly stories about the soldiers.  He tells his son how fun it is to march all day!  Though he knows the severity of the situation, Guido only wants his son to feel la vita è bella... Life is Beautiful.

In a recent sermon, Pastor challenged us to find the extraordinary in the ordinary...to find beauty in every day life.  Not the Cosmo, Kardashian, Maybelline, Nordstrom, Jimmy Choo kind of beauty, but the beauty that can only come from the realization that God gives us every little thing we need.  Extraordinary is that moment of beauty, in an otherwise ordinary situation.  I've pondered this...

Extraordinary is the rainbow that I see in the sprinklers on a hot day.  It's the video of Tangled, starting to crawl.  Extraordinary is the feeling of MrSayAhhh's arms holding me tight after he gets sad news from family out of state.  Rain, is extraordinary.  Watching the commuter in the car next to me belting out a song on the radio is extraordinary!  Grandgirl's arm around my neck in the middle of the night is extraordinary. The tingling that I feel down my spine when I'm praying, confirming the presence of God, is extraordinary.  Hearing the wind in the trees; counting the stars in the sky;  feeling the sun on my face, yep- extraordinary.  

I challenge you to find the extraordinary in today.  To be still and know, that God's provision is more than we could ask or even think.  To remember, that even in difficulty there is something extraordinary, and that la vita è bella.

With Faith Extraordinaire, ~Shugie

This is the day that the Lord has made.  We will rejoice and be glad in it.

Psalm 118:24