beauty

I’m on the hunt for beauty. 

Have you come across any lately? Has your breath been stolen by real beauty these days? 

I’m not talking about fashion industry standards. 

I’m talking about real. Deep. Dirty. Beauty. 

Vernix stuck to a newborn beauty.

Beauty that makes your soul sing. Makes tears leak out of your eyes.

Beauty that inspires you in your race of life, helps you dig deep.

I have seen too much ugly these last few months. The words used on the internet lately are tearing me down. And none of it has even been directed at me. But our human condition is such that we default to words that destroy. I am constantly on our children about using words that build up. Encouraging words, loving words, words that help us win, that help us run the race.

Whenever they use tear down words we talk about how it made us feel. Not just to the receiver but to the giver of those words as well. 

The harsh reality we never consider is that the words we use to destroy someone else destroy us too.

Maybe this is why I have been mourning. I have been living in sorrow these last few weeks with no name for why. An intense conversation with a treasured friend produced no answers other than “I am not doing well and I don’t know why” 

I came home from my vacation to my hometown feeling restored. I had a deep peace that I was just swimming in. It was glorious. But within weeks it was gone. And I couldn’t place why.

So I have been on the search for answers. I have been imploring the Lord to help me find the truth behind the dark I have been living in. And instead of right out saying “the trouble is _____”  He has led me to beauty. 

It is why I dove head deep into baking this last week. I can control this. I have permission to create beauty with flour, sugar, butter, eggs and an oven. 

This is why I have been making love to my husband, looking for colour in the dreary rain, holding my children just a little longer. I am singing with more abandon, serving with more gratitude and praying with more urgency.

And what has the Lord said to me?

“you have come to me, and I have shown you the need for beauty - the need for me”

What had I been doing?

I was still coming to him, but I wasn’t searching him. I wasn’t living with urgency, as if my life depended on it. I was allowing distractions to keep my focus, instead of giving my focus to Jesus. 

I am looking for where grace is found. I believe this will be my life’s prayer from now on. Lord, show me where your grace is found. And I see it.

When my son spends the morning playing with trains in nothing but a pyjama shirt because he’s still learning the ropes of the toilet. 

When I’m grumbling about making supper again but turn to see my husband home early and reading to our boys.

When my family has health struggles and I am too far away to help, to be there for them, but then I remember HE is everywhere and they were His before they were mine. 

I look at Brad, and while we have had many challenges the last few years I am still so grateful that they were with him. That we have built a trust and while I still may fail him, he forgives and loves me again and again. There is grace in the challenges. There is forgiveness in failings. That is the beauty. We need to seek it out, with urgency. 

We cannot focus on the ugly, we have to hold the gates of our hearts closed to it entering and stealing our peace. When we witness the ugly coming near we need to speak truth and beauty against it.

I am seeking beauty. I am seeking Christ. My life depends on it. 

Psalm 150