If noticing-pretty-things was a love language, it would be mine. I attribute my obsession with having a clean and decorated house to this quality. Everything has to be pretty and proper and in its place. My eyes are like a radar zeroed in on something of beauty, that vignette that stands out in a sea of ordinary.
My vision when I started this blog and my shop was to share beauty with others. But more than that, I want to encourage others to look around them and really see the beauty in life. Sometimes it’s visual beauty, sometimes it’s the beauty you see inside of another person, or a beautiful conversation. Inspiration is all around us.
One of the dilemma’s I had with starting this whole thing a year ago was that beauty is superficial and seems trivial. I mean, there are bigger issues in the world than making sure people see pretty things. But could it be that beauty satisfies some deep longing of the soul? That in all the ugliness in this world, stopping to see the small beauty can bring us a picture of hope?
God could have made this world ordinary, ugly, and boring. It would have served its purpose without anything especially interesting to look at. But He chose to infuse it with life and color and fascinating creations. As I imagine it, the Garden of Eden was a place of untainted beauty and we still see remnants of that today.
Beauty manifests itself in so many ways that sometimes we can’t help but sit up and take notice. But sometimes we have to be intentional about seeing and finding the beauty that is all around us. This article about teaching children beautiful speaks so perfectly to that sentiment and is a reminder that all beauty comes from God and points back to him.
And even when you don’t see beauty in your surroundings, many times you can see the potential for beauty. Maybe that’s a metaphor for life: seeing the potential in ugly situations, pictures, and people. Everything is stained with the effects of sin, but there is still beauty to be seen if we keep our eyes open. And it’s all a picture of an amazingly creative and inventive God.
I have to admit, I had a lot of frustration at the constant snow this winter and the nearly-impassable roads. I had to be intentional about reminding myself to look up at the majestic snow-covered mountains surrounding my town. When I fix my eyes on the negative and the ugly, I become discouraged; but when I focus on the beauty in my life, I see a picture of who God is. What we see impacts us more than we know. It infiltrates our minds and affects our thoughts. What we see matters.
In the same way, our hearts need to be stayed on a beauty far greater than outward appearance. So fix your eyes on Jesus, the ultimate beauty; The beauty and sorrow of the wounds that wrenched his body and the blood that meant freedom for us. The beauty of the empty tomb and the scars that remind us of the punishment he bore so we could be forgiven. And one day, through the wonder of the cross, our future world with God will be a place free from the ugliness of sin and a rebirth of that perfect beauty from the beginning of creation.
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I would love to see the beauty you are finding as you journey through this life. It might be a small vignette or a hidden flash of God’s artistry along the way, or it may be a grand majestic show of the beautiful. Whatever it is that captures your attention, share it on Instagram with the hashtag #sharingthebeautyinlife. I know there are a lot of pretty things on instagram, but I’d love to fill up the hashtag with unexpected beauty found in surprising places. Let’s share the beauty in life to point back to our creator.
