Bella.  Beautiful.  Beauty.  It was still morning.  I was feeling overwhelmed, already guilty that I hadn’t accomplished more as the clock darted forward.  My “should-dos” twisted my stomach and tightened the muscles in my hands and arms.  How many times do I have to pick myself up and keep trudging on?  That thought alone was enough to make me immobile.  I couldn’t take it anymore, so I grabbed my headphones and headed out the door with my iPhone in hand pretending that my guilt and exhaustion were locked up in the house behind me.  I threw on my headphones and put my entire music library on shuffle.  I didn’t care what music played.  Just something.  Anything.

I walked a couple of miles and stopped to rest at this little community garden in town.  While my iPhone chose an eclectic mix of repertoire to entertain me with, the song “Beautiful Things” by Michael Gungor played next.  As I listened to the words, I started looking around at this simple little garden.  The soft texture of  grass…contrasted with hard rock of earth.  Sharp pine needles of evergreens cutting into long flowing branches of the willow tree.  The plumpness of a boxwood shrub next to  slender lilies.  And the flowers…painted with such vibrant color. Hot pink, yellow, orange and red. Some of them were two-toned and even three-toned. Bella. Beautiful. Beauty.  All created by the Master Artist. I was overwhelmed by God’s creativity in that little garden.

If God’s handiwork of nature can be beautiful, why can’t I beautiful? Why isn’t creating beauty important? Someone once told me that being beautiful was a curse. I believed them and had been living my life trying to suppress my love for anything beautiful and feeling guilty and foolish for the desire to do so. I was taught that it was a vain pursuit and that I had more important things to attend to. I was always “too much” had too many ideas and believed I should “dial it down a little”.

Was God being foolish when he took the time to move the depths of earth to create mountain, land and sea? Was He being vain for showing off the maple trees by changing them from green to a screaming red and orange? Was He being a little dramatic while dropping waterfalls wherever He chose? Of course not. It’s who He is. Beautiful, magnificent, perfect and good. It was in that moment that God started to crack the layers of my heart that I had allowed to be hardened to suppress my passion for beauty and art. It’s who I am, and what I love. Creating beauty to reflect the goodness of our Creator is what I’m supposed to do. Bella. Beautiful. Beauty.