window sill things

i spend a lot of time at my kitchen sink.  more time than i ever thought possible when i was a young girl dreaming about my someday home and my someday husband and my someday children.   somehow i never thought much about filthy bowls and sauce pots and dishpan hands.  but this is where i stand quite often.  hands in hot water and eyes fixed on a window. i am so thankful for this strategic portal above the dish gathering bottomless pit of kitchen sink.  it helps.  i scrape and scrub and wipe and wash and i stare out at the canopy of trees hovering over our backyard.  sometimes they are every color of green and sometimes they are gold and rust.  regardless of season, they are my dish-doing companions. and the window, a gift.


this window seems also to be place for collections.  remember the science table back in 2nd grade?  my window sill is like that.  and i love it.  when the kids bring in an interesting leaf or feather or bug, it goes right there, above sink on the sill - at least for a while.  it is a place for treasures - a place for beautiful things. a place of high household esteem.


recently i was told i would need to take some pretty important pills.  everyday.  mind you, i am not particularly skilled in remembering to take vitamins or medicine.  i have a strange kind of disconnect when it comes to this simple chore.   but one of the pills is with me for the next five years and is important in keeping me cancer-free.  i'm not messing around with it.  i'll remember to take this one.

i knew i'd need to put that pill right in front of me every day. it would need to sit in my direct line of daily vision.  "of course," i thought, "the window sill."  my standing and staring and thinking spot - that would be the surest place possible.  i've never gone a day without stopping in front of our kitchen sink.  but here's the deal.  i loathe those brown and white prescription bottles all lined up like an army of hard to pronounce names.  (go ahead and roll your eyes).  i can't help it.  i just knew i couldn't place all that pharmaceutical plastic in the midst of our treasures. i'd end up shoving them into a drawer and then forgetting about them for a week.  if the pills were going on the window sill, they'd have to be pretty. that's all there was to it.


sometimes we don't get to choose pretty though. sometimes things come into our lives and they aren't in any way attractive.   cancer was like that for me.  the ugliness oozed from it, rotten and vile.  i struggled for a while wondering when beauty would return.  when cancer came calling everything seemed to turn a shade of grey. at least for a while.  i found out years ago, i have no magic wand to wave and i can't wish or wash the hard stuff away.  it comes whether we like it or not.  sometimes we can put our pills in fancy bottles and sometimes nothing works.

but when given the choice, what do we put up on our window sills?  what are we filling our eyes with? our minds, our time, our thoughts?  it makes a difference. and it really makes a difference when we're standing before a sink full of dirty dishes or a time full of grey. 

"finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right,

whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable -- if anything

is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things." ~ philippians 4:8

our window sill treasures...