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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. |
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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.
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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.
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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!
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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.
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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.
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