Reach for Beauty {Five-Minute Fridays}

Sometimes we need to uncover the beauty within the chaos of our lives.

But others, we have to run out the door, to reach for the beauty out there, beauty that exists outside of our chaos.

So yesterday, I woke early hoping to hit the pavement running. To inhale the fresh breeze and breathe in freedom before my responsibilities woke, ready to go. But alas, my husband had left before dawn for an early meeting, so I ran around our 4/10 of an acre instead.

That got old, real quick. But the kids’ trampoline stood there looking lonely, so I mustered up some oldies but goodies known as the pike, the herky, and the toe-touch.

What a riot! It was the most fun way to start a day of teaching and feeding and cleaning and Mommying. I had the trampoline and the whole backyard, all to myself for an hour.

Today, I remember why I should have worked a little harder at the stretching part. I never stretch enough, and I’m feeling those hundred midair toe-touches. My legs are telling me I’m not 15 anymore. Ow.

Sometimes we need to walk away from all these walls that confine us. We need to come out from under our ceilings to unhindered spaces where limits disappear. We need to take an hour away from the questions and requests for food and the lure of wiping one more crumb or washing another dirty dish, away from the books and papers and toys and faces all begging for a little more attention.

Sometimes the best idea is to become like a child for an hour, uncaged and in awe of vividness and blue. To be framed by walls made only of swaying trees, to walk on a floor of green beneath a wispy ceiling.

Sometimes the best encouragement comes when we fix our eyes on soft morning sunlight and singing birds flying through trees all pointing toward heaven.

All this outdoor artwork settles me. Reminds me God is tall and I am small. Whispers my place under God–where I always exist, though I’m not always conscious of it. Where I can feel that God is in all and through all and holds all things together.  

May you find some vast, lonely space and time this weekend, to the backyard or beyond.