Tip of My Iceberg

I’ve had the privilege this year of working with a gal who was not only incredibly bright and talented, but she also had a knack with flowers.

At her home in Ohio, she has gardens full of perennials and annuals, brimming with color and shapes that boggle the mind. Her enjoyment of gardening is her resting space, her way of dealing with stress.

And it brings her joy.

She came into the office the other day with a beautiful arrangement for me, one she created herself with flowers she bought and found around her apartment.

I appreciate the creativity she shared with me. Her ability to see beauty in nature all around her is something I’m often too busy to notice. Beauty and wonder are everywhere if we take the opportunity to pause and look.

It is a remarkable world.

Confucius said it well: “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” We miss what’s right in front of our eyes because we’re inundated with the misery, sadness, and brokenness of the world. Beauty is there; God has placed it before us so we may value, appreciate, and enjoy it. We often miss it because we’re hoping for more, dissatisfied with what we have, or are comparing what’s ours with what everyone else has.

We need to develop a lens for seeing with a sense of awe and wonder, choosing not to look through the filter that accentuates the ugliness and horror of the world, but selecting to view the glory before us.

When God created the world, He spent focused time on each aspect of it for our pleasure and enjoyment. On the first day, He created light amid all the darkness, and He separated day from night, giving us rhythms of work and rest. On the second day, He created the sky, and on the third day, He created dry land, separating the seas. The third day is also when God created vegetation, seed-bearing plants and fruit trees. Day four He created the sun, moon, and stars, serving as signs for seasons, days, and years. Day five God created all the living creatures in the seas and every winged creature in the skies. Day six was when He created all animals, and then He created man.

It was all good in God’s eyes. The beauty of the earth was perfection itself. No diseases, nothing to damage the balance and symmetry of all that He’d made.

“But the LORD made the earth by His power, and He preserves it by His wisdom. With His own understanding, He stretched out the heavens. When He speaks in the thunder, the heavens roar with rain. He causes the clouds to rise over the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and releases the wind from His storehouses.” Jeremiah 10:12-13.

The creative genius of God provides everything we need for living and thriving.

The poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson, said, “Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything beautiful, for beauty is God’s handwriting.”

My friend gifted me with beauty. It may be short-lived, but it leaves a memory of the beauty of our friendship.

What do you see as beauty in your life?