The sun setting, pink and gold, behind a mountain... that bouquet of roses... fireworks on the 4th of July. We ooh, and we aaah, and then... we go home.
The "typical" things are beautiful, to be sure. But what is beauty, anyway? Who decided that some things should be lovely, and everything else is automatically not? How often do we step out of the box and notice things that are "ugly"?
The prickly. The dying. The abnormal. Things that we usually shy away from - not only in nature, but when we find these things in other people.
No one wants to be around the person who seems to be covered in thorns. It's uncomfortable, investing in those people who are so prickly... awkward... even harsh sometimes.
But who says that all beauty has to look the same at first appearance?
Look through.
Find the beauty.
No one wants to be around the person who is dying. Or so it seems. We shy away from those horrible smelling hospital rooms (understandable, at times), because it's uncomfortable for us. But it's more than just those in hospitals. Most people don't prefer to spend much time with the elderly at all, if they can help it.
They're frail. They're weak. Unable to do for themselves like they used to. Sometimes old people are, frankly, a little gross. But is beauty really tied to being young? Inside that old, worn out shell is the soul of a human being that is going to live on into eternity. Our souls never age.
There is so much beauty to be found in the old (Prov. 20:29).
Look through.
Find the beauty.
No one wants to be around the person who is abnormal. The one who has that really, really strange sense of humor. The one who has a speech impediment or is missing a hand or has really thick glasses. The one who has absolutely no sense of style. The one who doesn't seem to be "all together" upstairs. The one who is just... different.We're told that when we judge beauty, we tend to look for symmetry. It's natural, I suppose. We are beings created to look for order. But sometimes the asymmetrical things, the uneven things, these are the very ones that contain the most interest.
Things don't always have to be symmetrical to be worthwhile.
Look through.
Find the beauty.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
He hath made everything beautiful in its time:
also he hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out
the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.
also he hath set eternity in their heart, yet so that man cannot find out
the work that God hath done from the beginning even to the end.
Every thing is as God has made it; it is really as he appointed it to be, not as it appears to us. That which to us seems most unpleasant is yet, in its proper time, altogether becoming. Cold is as becoming in winter as heat in summer; and the night, in its turn, is a black beauty, as the day, in its turn, is a bright one. There is a wonderful harmony in the divine Providence and all its disposals, so that the events of it, when they come to be considered in their relations and tendencies, together with the seasons of them, will appear very beautiful, to the glory of God and the comfort of those that trust in him. Though we see not the complete beauty of Providence, yet we shall see it, and a glorious sight it will be, when the mystery of God shall be finished. Then every thing shall appear to have been done in the most proper time and it will be the wonder of eternity. -Matthew Henry
Look through. Find the beauty.
All photos © Julia Jensen
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