It was one of those mornings. You know the ones? You wake and your house looks like this, your children don’t like the homemade muffins you made and it is ‘too cold for smoothies’? You know those mornings? When they won’t get out the door, when the home reading book is missing and the communication books are scattered? You know those ones right? It isn’t just me?

I have 1 million things to do today. Actually.

So as the children leave I start rushing. Running. DO ALL THE THINGS. GET THEM ALL DONE.

But then.

What if advent this season is more than talk? What if I actually join in the waiting? The stillness? What if I hunt beauty instead of burden? What if I slip outside and breathe deep? What if I kick fresh snow and look at heavy branches, the way they shake off that snow before they break under the weight. What if I breathe deep the cold, and think about the smallness of these moments, the way my tiny story isn’t the only one? What if I turn my eyes up, out? What if I can watch the clouds shift and the trees sway?

What if I really can keep my tiny story wrapped into His? What if I can learn to hold this tension with an open hand? The longing for more, the expectation of restoration, the extraordinary beauty of the RIGHT NOW.  The now and not yet.

I breathe. I stop my hustling. God is most pleased with our BEING. Not our doing. Our being that breathes him in…that senses Him. That seeks Him. That settles in on the waiting, the hoping, the promises.

And then this…

“As soon as we acknowledge God to be the supreme architect, who has erected the beauteous fabric of the universe, our minds must necessarily be ravished with wonder at His infinite goodness, wisdom and power” (John Calvin).

Ravished with wonder.

That the earth outside your window is tilted right now at just twenty-three degrees. So there are seasons and the vapors of oceans don’t simply amass continents of ice, so the planet’s bulk of six sextillion tons (that’s twenty-one zeros) spins perfectly balanced on an invisible axis, spinning you around at one thousand miles an hour, nine million miles a year. Hurtling you through space even right now in this sun orbit at nineteen miles per second, 600 million miles a year. YOU held in this moment by this unseen belt of gravity and turning pages slowly…

Christmas begins here. The Christmas story, this LOVE story – the whole blue marble of the world spinning right now on the Cross-beam axis of Love.” -Ann Voskamp, The Greatest Gift p. 13-14

Join me today? Slip outside and go on a beauty hunt. Look up at the clouds shifting, the trees swaying, that gorgeous creation sitting just to your right.  Breathe it in deep, it is a gift for you today. Feel small and ordinary, admit you can’t do it all. Don’t even try.

Take a photo and send it to me? Love to encourage each other as we #beautyhunt

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