Finding beauty in everyday life

Today, over at Faith Barista, Bonnie talks about finding beauty in everyday life.

Hmmm...
Finding beauty. In everyday life.

I could give the ‘beauty in nature’ answer. The glorious sunsets and sunrises. The quiet of a cool evening. The birds singing their hearts out as dusk approaches. The exclamations of flowers: spilling out of window boxes, jostling in gardens, scattered over the fields, exploding from the stone walls which line my journey to work. The myriad shades of a turquoise sea lapping the islands where I live. I could give that as an answer.

But I find beauty in other ways. Beauty which is called encouragement, inspiration, warmth, friendship, love.

Beauty in character. Where beauty is seen which has nothing to do with physical appearance.
Beauty in an affirming email or card, responding to a tiny kindness.
Beauty in my elderly friend, courageously living a life plagued with infirmity and illness.
Beauty in an insecure child I teach, as his personality and confidence begin to blossom.
Beauty in the security of my church house group: beauty as we seek to grow together in love.
Beauty in a smile.
The most beautiful thing of all: Jesus.

Because God has made everything beautiful in his time. The writer of Ecclesiastes talks about setting eternity in the hearts of men, yet we cannot understand the extent of what God has done...except through faith. Faith gives us hope, gives us purpose, gives us direction as we live out who we are meant to be - to become truly beautiful. Even the smallest thing we do can be beautiful: Jesus tells us so.

And so, everything is beautiful – EVERYTHING. We just have to open our eyes to see beauty, our ears to hear it, our hearts to experience it. To see Jesus in everything we do, say, experience – finding JESUS in everyday life.