What is Beauty?

What is beauty? The more I see of God, the more unexpected places I find it.

The mute's first halting word, the lame's first stumbling step. The broken's first real laugh. A small hand reaching up into mine as a child decides, against all past experience, to trust one more time. A smile on the face of a grandmother with the mind of a child as she experiences her Father's love. These have shattered my neat and tidy preconceptions of what is beautiful.

Pure praise rising from the lips of one whose life is mired in destruction. Complete abandon to the One who holds the power of life and death, regardless of circumstances. The sight of powerful men and women willingly facedown in the presence of God.

Ear-splitting shrieks as the bound are set free. Screams of faith and trust in the center of life's hurricanes. The raw and bleeding laying down at Jesus' feet, and rising with wounds half-healed to minister to others.

Jesus came to give us beauty instead of our ashes. Sometimes that happens overnight. When it doesn't, I'm learning to find beauty among the ashes.

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