Many of us get caught up in the rat race of life and forget to literally stop and smell the roses.
It’s seems that we are too busy paying bills, managing problems and raising a family to look at the beauties of life, what they have to offer and enjoy them. I’m reminded every year at this time because spring is approaching and if you look, you can see new beauty all around.
When is the last time you smelled beauty? It could have been a flower garden, the morning dew, or your favorite cologne on your favorite person – the smell of beauty is all around us!
My youngest daughter, Kimberly, turned 10 recently and we just got her school pictures back. Obviously I’m a little biased, but she looked gorgeous! I can’t take much credit for that. Her mom and namesake should get all the credit.
Nevertheless, a decade ago I witnessed her birth – yet another form of beauty – and now I see a little girl, full of promise, growing up totally sure of who she is and what her potential can be. And that, my friends, is another beautiful thing!
My favorite flowers – tulips – are coming along with a host of beautiful friends: daffodils, scillas, pussy willows, primrose, muscari and dogwood trees will all bring fresh smells and beauty to our lives.
The only sad part about this whole concept of beauty is that there are some of us who have been wounded, shut out, omitted and excluded and because of that, it’s hard for them to experience beauty. Their lives have been too riddled with mistakes and disappointments to enjoy things like beauty. Even when they are surrounded by beauty, they can’t experience it.
There’s a valuable lesson here. Depression and its symptoms leave us alienated from the very reminders that God gave us to prove He exists. I didn’t always take time to see beauty either, but then I realized the true benefits. All of the beauty that surrounds us serves as a constant reminder that our Creator is near. And that we can take great pride in the fact that the controller of the universe could take the time to make provisions for us.
Remember what Jesus said in Matt. 6:25-30:
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?
26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 27 And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? 28 And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,
29 yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?” (ESV)
We need to spend less time worrying and more time enjoying the beauty around us. Try it this week. Take time in the morning and in the evening to examine beauty. Your soul will thank you!
ClydeStyle 