On Beauty

In the last few years I have grown more aware of a need for beauty in our lives. As I experience His creation I think, God could have created a functional world with just our survival needs being met.  But He did so much more than that.  He gave us incredible beauty. And He instilled in us a desire and need for it. We need a protective structure to live in, but we also want our home to be a beautiful sanctuary.  There is a lot of ugliness in our world. We need to balance it with loveliness when we can. Not for the sake of having "things", but to remind us of the wonder of His provision.  We have become a society of fast foods, plastic and busy-ness.  Don't get me wrong...my husband and I often eat on paper plates in front of the TV. And when our four children were still living at home we were on the go a lot. But I feel more and more that we need to sometimes take the time to pull out that "good china" that sits in our china cupboards, use those precious hand stitched linens that grandma made,  and leisurely converse with friends and family...surrounded with beauty.  As we go through our daily activities we need to be able to rest our eyes for a moment on that wonderful photo we snapped on the day trip we took with the kids that was so much fun.  Or catch a whiff of the fresh flowers on the table as we pass by. Or pause, just to enjoy the beauty of a vignette we created with some of our favorite things.

One recent evening, after a long day, I had a glass of a special gingerale my sister shared with me. I was in shorts and tee shirt with my bare feet propped up. But I drank it out of a gorgeous etched glass goblet.  I felt like a queen.  ;)