“It [beauty] is to the spirit what food is to the flesh. It fills an emptiness in you that nothing else under the sun can.”  Frederick Buechner

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Beauty is important.

I love beautiful things; works of art, flowers, sunsets, aptly spoken words, an eagle in flight… aren’t we all drawn to beautiful? It must be so… we are images of Him, and as creatures made in His own image, the Beauty Maker, it makes logical sense that we also are drawn to the beautiful.

A miracle has been happening lately. I can see its affect on me– sometimes instantly, but it’s a process that has been changing me internally the past couple of years.

It’s this:

The closer I get to the Creator of all this beauty around me, the more my heart reflects His own. The closer I am to the Beauty Maker, the more beauty I actually notice. As I move closer to the Father of all, I am more thankful and am more gracious… and my heart reflects more of the love that He is… He IS love. He IS beauty.

And so the people around me become…more beautiful. I am more gracious, accepting. Ironically it is knowing the ugliness and depravity of my own heart, and then accepting God’s grace and forgiveness, that transforms me.

Thorns of the world still scratch me; sometimes they feel like arrows aimed directly at me. I know that life includes suffering, trials and pain. While I still struggle to understand senseless suffering, I do trust the Beauty Maker, that He knows all, sees all, He redeems, and will make all things right. This is one of the hopes I hold onto, that helps me when I see things in this world that make me wince and cry out and question “why?”

He knew what it would be like, because He promises joy after a night of sorrow, and that He will never leave nor forsake us. He promises life– abundant. He promises to be near and that not one sparrow falls without Him, and that each of our hairs even has a number! Can you imagine a God knowing that kind of detail? (He must know that #339 turned gray…)

So, as I’ve gotten older, and have children ages 8-13, I am learning as He patiently, gently teaches me. One of the biggest lessons lately is about beauty. As I learn how to speak messages of truth to myself, my desire is to  speak these same truths to my children and to those around me… especially other women and friends who need to hear truth, the truth of Beauty, and of a beautiful, gracious God.

Being close to the Beauty Maker inspires me… not only to share words of truth (to myself and to others) but also to make the space around me beautiful. After all, the beauty around us is a reflection of Him, His own self, reflected back at Him, like a mirror. And so are we– beautiful reflections of the Beauty Maker himself.

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On Fridays, I like to join Lisa-Jo at The Gypsy Mama for her Five Minute Friday writing prompts. Click the link to join in or read other posts on “Beauty”, today’s prompt.