The challenge was a simple one. Find beauty this week. That was her admonition – find it even in the ugly. My new cyber friend with her wise words and tender heart. How did she know that my heart was wrestling with the ugly? Weary from it. Prone to focus on it and miss gratitude.
She was embarking on a beauty hunt and she was challenging me to do the same. Her words: “You’re warmly invited to join me in a Beauty Challenge this week, your own motley crew of bottles, your own furniture vases, your own hunt for God with slips of beauty not bought but quietly and unexpectedly uncovered. A twig may become art when attended to. Of course, not all the found beauty will fit in a vase. Some will find a perfect container in a gratitude journal. Regardless what empty place you will with beauty, it will grace you, this week, a life, with God.” Her questions: Can beauty be uncovered anywhere? Do I have eyes to see? Can I find God here? Isn’t that always the challenge?**
Wouldn’t you know that my beauty hunt brought me to the laundry room? How many hours do I spend in that room warring against the mud and the grass stain? Banishing the wrinkles? Mending the wounded buttons or scarred hemlines? So many hours and so little glamour.
And, oh, that boy of mine. He approaches life with such passion and intensity. And, it shows. On his clothes. Some people can wear their jeans for a few days before a wash. Not my guy. Not the boy who MUST dive for the football at recess. Or climb under the shed when he’s playing hide and seek. Or roll through the mud while wrestling with his buddy in the leaf-strewn back yard.
How I scrub at those jeans. Day after day. Survival has forced me to learn the tricks. Fels Naptha for the grass stains. Spray cleaner for the other stains. Scrub brush and warm water for the mud. I’ve learned to keep his church jeans separate from the rest. And, I adore Sears for their Kidvantage program, for when the holes inevitably come. They always do. He never outgrows them first. The holey knees always come first. It’s been this way as long as I can remember – ever since his toddle morphed into a run.
But, here’s where the challenge comes full circle: Can I find beauty in those muddy jeans? Could my cringe turn into a smile when I see him round the bend all muddy at school pick-up? Instead of wondering why he’s dirtier than all the other boys, could I encourage him to keep giving it his all? Is it so bad that he likes to throw his whole body into an impossible catch or an unlikely tackle?
What if those muddy jeans actually say something beautiful about Caleb? Something that I hadn’t noticed before. What if…
Finding beauty is a wonderful thing. Will you join us as we look for it? And then thank the One who embodies it and lavishes it on us?
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**And, please be sure to visit Ann’s original post so that you can enjoy the fullness of her words – those that spurred me to look beyond the ugly: http://www.aholyexperience.com/2009/11/beauty-challenge-because-gods.html.
As a mom to a newly adopted 2 year old boy, I can only imagine what beauty I will find in the years to come…
Thank you! This made me just smile~
This was so well said. And true. I wrote a post long ago about the laundry room sink being an altar of sorts. With five active kids I’ve spent hours washing away life.