The day is so beautiful after a storm, the sky is bluer, the clouds are whiter, the sun is brighter. The rain washed the earth clean last night and cleared the sky leaving a sense of peace and thankfulness for God’s grace. Father Sky opened a new box of colorful pastels this morning sketching a glorious day for worship. Old Man Winter lowered the temperature and set the bamboo to dancing in a cool northern wind as the sun filtered yellow rays down through the bamboos’ slender branches. The crimson cardinals and their velvet brown mates sat on the bare old oak’s limbs like forgotten ornaments on a Christmas tree, riding the branches as the north wind blew. The wind chimes pinged clear cold notes from their silver pipes, hymns in thanks for a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Dusk crept across the landscape just as Mother Nature washed the horizon with her watercolors of golden honey. The sun rolled down the horizon as a ball of white lightning right into the arms of Father Sky. Together they turned the day to darkness as Father Sky kissed the sun goodnight, waking the moon and twinkling stars. The night came alive through the purple heavens.

The moving melodies of the wind chimes were glorious this afternoon loudly pinging out their tunes with the wind gusts, quietly singing winter symphonies when the wind turned to a soft breeze. I was thinking this afternoon if I could be reincarnated as an inanimate object I would choose to be a wind chime hanging above a much loved porch swing on the porch of an old white clapboard tin roofed farm house resting at the end of a dirt road in the country. My slender metal pipes would sing with the songbirds and my loud banging tintinnabulations would keep the chickens awake on stormy nights.

Wind chimes have been around for thousands of years as symbols of hope and renewal. When the wind touches its fingers to my wind chimes I feel a connection to God and nature through the music of the pipes. In the summer the soft tintinnabulations provide musical notes for the butterflies and honey bees to fly around, yard symphonies for the songbirds to sing along. Susie Clevenger writes, “A breeze twists the wind chimes into a song breaking my heart with the melody of your absence.” I love that quote.

I can see God as a wind chime bringing music and beauty to our lives when our hearts listen to the gentle and powerful tintinnabulations of his grace. Sometimes God’s wind chimes are subtle offering us peace when we listen closely. Other times the stormy banging of the chimes reminds us of God’s presence, assuring us God’s holy light will lead us through the storm’s darkness.

“The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit,” John 3:8. God’s spirit moves like the wind through the wind chimes, invisible but powerful. Our faith causes the chimes to sing forth God’s blessings. Sometimes we have to quiet our lives to hear God and feel his presence. Listen to God’s music. His wind chimes bring the music of peace and tranquillity into our lives.

“God is like the wind. We can’t see him, but we know he’s there.” — Unknown