.jpg)
Thankfully, at the age of 48, I've learned some lessons in life. One of them is to always look for the beauty. Life can be hard at times, and people can be difficult. It's easy to be controlled by our emotions or our circumstances. When life is going smooth, we feel good. Then life throws us a curve, and that "feeling good" emotion flies out the window.
Our emotions change, our circumstances change, our relationships change, people around us change, WE change. God never does. Can I hear an "Amen"? And I've learned that when I take the time to open my eyes and REALLY look, I can often find beauty, on a gloomy day or in a gloomy situation.
Yesterday, we had a beautiful spring day...the sun was shining, the air was warm, everything around was blooming. Something as simple as opening my sunroof and riding around on my lunch break, singing old Motown along with the radio, made me appreciate the beauty of a spring day.
Beauty can be found, and usually is, in some of the smallest things in life. And sometimes, in order to see the small and the simple things in life, we have to ask God to open our eyes. Maybe our beauty for the day is when we open the mailbox and in the middle of a pile of bills, we recognize the handwriting on an envelope and it's a card or letter from a friend. I saw real beauty when my friend, Vicki, would take homebaked goodies to the nurses and staff at the oncology center where SHE was receiving chemo. The medicine that both healed her and poisoned her.....would make her feel like poo for days and days, and in spite of that, she would show up, bald headed but beautiful....with a smile on her face and sugary homemade sweetness for the folks taking care of her.
Beauty can be found in the routine and ordinary, such as a friend bringing you your favorite drink from Sonic on a busy day at work.."one large unsweet tea with lemon, thank you". Sometimes it's as big as when friends call you and say "I have an extra fridge and I hear yours isn't cooling. Would you be interested in ours?" Maybe your beauty to look for is as small as smile from a stranger, or a blooming flower on a gloomy day.
I've seen beauty when friends "show up" for one another.....whether it's a hug, a shoulder to cry on, someone who will sit with you in the hospital, talk with you all night long if you need to, feed you when you're sick.
I've seen beauty in my daughters....when I hear from others how they impact their lives, what kind of friend they are, how they interact at school and work, respectively.
I think that opening our eyes to the beauty in people and in life, and in the blessings that God gives us, is something we have to actively practice. It's too easy to get preoccupied with the busyness of life sometimes for us to see beauty around us. Our lives are fast paced and chaotic, who has time to stop and smell the roses? Or maybe our life is in turmoil at the present....bad things DO happen. People get sick, jobs can be stressful, sometimes jobs are lost, bills pile up, our kids struggle, relationships get messy or go away, addictions are real. Maybe we are in such pain that we don't ever think we can see the beauty in life again. Maybe that mountain looming in front of you is so big that you don't see the small flowers blooming on it, or the trickling brook beside it. But the beauty really IS there. God always provides beauty and blessings...even in the middle of the very dark and the very yucky stuff in life.
