There is so much of me that craves beauty.
It is almost a tangible deficiency somedays, when my smile is lagging, when my breaths are pulled taut, when my attention is scattered like my son’s die cast cars across the carpet. The endless ocean of die cast cars…
I cannot even begin to name that hunger when physical hunger often is missed while I am running between diapers, doctors, and dirty clothes. Without real effort, I cannot even begin to identify that what I really want is to see the Beauty Between. In all the crevices of Normal and Sub-par. The super in the natural. That is what I really need. But my senses get dull so easily.
And then I watch a short video about unexpected love and a pulling, exhausting attachment. Or I hear a song that reminds me of Pretty and of the sunshines I keep company with. I witness my oldest speaking to my youngest in a compassionate and tender tone, moments after I consider a day-long time-out. Or I suddenly miss a beautiful friend who passed away two short, long weeks ago. I think about her and the beauty of her generosity, her sassy style, her beautifully-crafted story of resilience and healing.
And these things strike a chord, a reverberating deep chord of the Sacred. Of the Beauty I miss, not because it is not around me but because I am slow and too fast and I think I need to be in the woods to have it. To participate.
It has been a relief-less run lately. Asher’s 6th febrile seizure and his terrible rendition of the flu took me off guard. I couldn’t stop crying one night when his diaper and the day’s events took me back to Guatemala and a particularly desperate time of not knowing what to do about his health. I stared at the Maytag downstairs, telling myself he was okay, it was okay, and I tried to focus on the amazing thing of a washing machine and an extra sheet and ER this time around. Ryan and I are having tough discussions in an effort of discernment and dreams are scary to name and disappointments hurt and distractions demand. We have been thrown into a “child welfare” system and a process and scenario no amount of classes could foreshadow and we are helpless. It is all waiting and responsibility and confusion. Losing Lily has left a hole, even for me on the peripheral. I expect her to drop by and then my heart drops. And her children, no matter how many – and there are many – loving aunties and motherly neighbors they have, have lost their mom. Their motivator, their fan, their hero. And other children will talk and complain about their moms and be sent to school with Valentine’s Day doo-dads from their moms and will not have had to find the perfect size 6 girls dress for their mom’s memorial service. We can mother them but we cannot be their mother. His wife. Their rock.
Beauty, bullets to my ignored heart from the unexpected sources, in the midst of this cloud of welling and numbing, hits me hard and sudden. Fleeting, but reminding me of True and Noble and Praiseworthy and Excellent. And I am crying not because of fear, or even of grief, but just craving. Of recognition and longing.
The pilgriming is hard, isn’t it?
In these days, beauty reminds me that the promise is still coming. That nothing is wasted. That something in me is still alive and creative and wanting more is part of the journey forward. That now is all we have and nothing I am cleaning or fretting over is for keeps.
In these days, with disguised beauty and bulleted beauty and coming beauty, I am trying to remember to stop. To look. I am trying to believe that the heaviest things are not the truest things necessarily. That crying over a Chinese commercial isn’t just crying over a Chinese commercial. That pausing to peer at a die cast car with a four-year-old is worthwhile. That beauty knocks and sneaks in and beauty is even within this fidgeting, weary frame. Because this frame is part of Creation and humanity and there is good and beauty because He makes it so.
Wide Places 
Yes
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