Devotion 236 - Sand

No one told me that choosing beautiful can be ugly.

It can be hard...It can feel impossible.

It is impossible, if we choose by ourselves.

You see I had been trying to choose for days; trying to see beautiful in ugly.

But beautiful is not something we pick up and carry.

It is not ours for the holding.  It is ours for the witnessing and ours for the worshipping. 

Every day I got up extra early.  Every day my list of chores doubled as my husband recuperated.    I wanted him well.  I wanted him strong.  I wanted our beautiful life back.  So I ran ahead anticipating projects he would see, messes he would want to clean, and work he would do.

I was tired but I was convinced in being ahead, I would not fall behind and see the ugly of my drive to see beautiful.

The work week over I purchased flowers and began beautifying our yard.  I pulled weeds with a vengeance; ugly had no place in my life this week.  I planted, I trimmed, I spread poison so grass would rid itself from my steps. 

I finished sweaty, exhausted and irritated.

In my own strength, that is my life.

As I recycled plastic flower pots, I remembered the sand I had purchased.  I told my little daughter I had a surprise and filled her sandbox.  She was elated.

I watched through the glass as creativity took shape.

With every scoop she moved farther into her imaginary world.  She built castles and moats, bridges and streams.  It was glorious.

She would add water and pat the walls then add more sand, more water.  Never once was her creation finished, just reshaped and resized.

Now the afternoon sun seized her land.  I grabbed my camera.  This I had not chosen, no this beauty was handed to me.

Somehow I could see my heart there in the sand.   The Father molding, creating, pushing, squeezing and me fighting to make sense of it all on my own.

Yet, we create nothing on our own.  He is the Creator, forever and always.  He chooses beautiful and every once in an afternoon sun, we get a glimpse of our part of the majesty.

He doesn't want us to do it on our own.  He wants to be there holding, molding, pouring grace and mercy so that we even in our ugliness  can reflect the Son.  Our weakness is His workplace.

Oh Beloved it feels like failure.  That word rattles through my brain far too often when I admit I am not smart enough, nor strong enough or clever enough.

But then again, I am not meant to be.

I, we, are just sand.  Nimble enough for Him to run His fingers through but strong when he pours His power through us and His light in us.

We choose Beautiful when we seek the Creator of Beauty.  

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.  James 1:17