A few months ago, I was watching the world outside my window fly by as we drove down a back road in Oklahoma. We turned a corner and my eyes fell upon a scene that etched itself in my mind. An old, rickety fence, stretched itself around an area of tall grass, weeds and trees. It was a mess of overgrowth, not much to look at, but pushing up through the ugliness were little yellow daffodils. These golden flowers dotted the yard and made me smile. I tucked this picture away with the thought that God’s beauty can be found, even in the lowliest places. I intended to expound upon that idea at a later point but never actually sat down to do it.
The other night, my husband and I were reading Our Daily Bread, and the anectode the author of that night’s devotion shared brought me back to the yellow daffodils I saw during my visit to Oklahoma. The city I stayed in was rather destitute. Boarded up houses lined the streets. A well kept home front was the exception, not the norm. It was heartbreaking to witness so many delapidated houses, many of which people called home. But when spring arrived, those yellow daffodils popped up everywhere. Some home owners had tamed the floral beauties to line a walkway or circle a lamp post, but many had let them be so that that they grew wild. The sunny flowers jutted up through the mangled weed-inftested lawns and neatly mowed lawns alike.
That is how God works. He does not just allow His beauty to grow in the most put-together, manicured people. Sometimes, His beauty shines brightest through the people who we may have written off because of their appearance. Ugliness is not purely appearance, though. There can be a mess of thistles and thorns growing up inside of us, choking our growth. It can make us mean. It can make us downright repulsive. But if bright and cheery flowers can spring up amongst a tangled up yard of weeds, then there can be growth inside of us too. Not one of us is perfect, but if we allow Him to keep chipping away at us, we can radiate beauty. And not only will we radiate beauty but we will be better able to recognize it as well.
It has been incredibly difficult to see the beauty in people, and the world lately. I wake up in pain and/or feeling gross every morning. It gets tiresome. It makes me grumpy. I go online and see people arguing about the topic of the week (this week’s seems to be the Confederate flag). So much ugliness is spewed during these word battles, posted at length through the means of social media. (I have opinions too, but every time I start to write I give up part way through and determine it futile to start a war over something that has been said by someone else already. So, if you see me broaching a controversial topic, you know it has to be important to me.) Weeds, choking up the internet, strangling society.
I want to be a flower pushing up through the chaos. I want to be a beacon pointing to Jesus. I want to be these things so that I can see beauty in the ashes. I hurt. I feel like dirt. The doctors seem no closer to figuring out what it wrong, if anything, with me…and I feel hopeless some days, save for the hope I have in Christ. He is the beauty I see, but I want to see Him more. That is why, even when I am doubled over in pain or walk like my batteries are dying, I still cry out to my Savior. Yes, it would be awesome (and I touched briefly on this in my previous post) if He were to reach down today, tap me on the shoulder and say, “You’re healed, my child.” Obviously, He has not done that. I could get bitter about that; or I could choose to accept this affliction for what it is, the ugliness that results from the introduction of sin into the world. This was not His intent for me. He wanted beauty everywhere. So, I have to look a little harder for it now, but it is there. The closer I am to Him, the more peace it brings me, the more I recognize it. And the closer I am to Him, the more others will be able to recognize it in me.
This is the truth I am choosing to cling to today!
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