Last month I would not have seen the beauty of the mums that were newly planted at the entrance to our subdivision, but today, I was awed and transfixed by their gorgeous colors as I drove in. I know that sounds "slightly overly" waxing poetic (if that's a thing), but you know what I mean: when suddenly a sunset or a tree, or a morning full of birdsong stops you in your tracks and for me, my heart immediately turns to the Creator.
Last month, I had a thyroid imbalance that turned my world to grey. I wouldn't wish that on anyone. I can't even imagine what misery people with full grown lasting depression go through. Mine I would describe as brain fog: couldn't make decisions, nothing tasted good, everything seemed too hard, I didn't feel like going places I usually love, I wanted to come home when I was anywhere. My head was full of grumpy thoughts that I recognized as unnecessary and untrue but they kept popping into my brain nevertheless. When I finally figured out what was going on, it only took two days to get me on-kilter but I told one friend that it scares me to be 25 miligrams of thyroid medication away from mental illness!!!
A term popped out to me from the book I'm studying at church right now, Aging with Grace by Sharon W. Betters and Susan Grace. In it they defined "aging with grace" as becoming an older woman that was life-giving instead of life-taking - in other words, not like the way I felt for the last month. But it was this sentence that stopped me short: "The hope of glory is future, but there are very real implications right here and right now. Our union with Christ results in a radical change from beast to beauty."
The challenge of this book is to not give up on ourselves as "too old to change" - that we can continue to grow in reflecting God's glory - in showing to others His mercy, graciousness, slowness to anger, steadfast love, faithfulness and forgiveness. (Ex 34:6-7). Our character, attitudes, and actions throughout our life may have been "beastly" at times along the way, but that doesn't mean we can't be still growing in inner beauty. As 2 Cor 4 tells us: Therefore we do not lost heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day... So we look to what is unseen, for the seen is only temporary."
The authors aptly described the gladness we feel soley from temporal things - yes, even mums - as the beauty that the beast (the humanness within) us looks for from people, things and circumstances. And as our bodies change as we age, so can our spirits if we just look to what we see. After all, winter comes, the mums fade, and so do we. It seemly totally poetic a few weeks ago when at my 50th!!! class reunion I looked at the scrolling monitor of all the classmates that have passed on, then picked up a yearbook displayed nearby... the black and white pictures were actually fading. "Just like us," I said half-joking at this truth!!! The authors speak to this: "We must guard against our hearts becoming brittle and bitter as the disappointments of life (and aging) continue to come, by praying for grace to abide in Christ and bear the fruit of steadfast love and faithfulness to others."
Elizabeth Elliot who lost two husbands after getting married later in life says this about those hard places that can make us life-takers instead of givers: "This hard place you find yourself in is the very place where God is giving you the opportunity to look only to Him; to spend time in prayer and to learn the depths of (His) love..."
And so, today, I see the beauty of the fall splendor, but I don't just appreciate it in itself. I use the moment of beauty to tame the beast inside by not just looking down at what this earth has to offer, but by looking up and praising.
Beauty Tames the Beast
No comments:
Post a Comment